President Obama said last week he would buy a Chevy Volt - but not for another five years. We can't fault him for that, in a weak economy lots of people postpone car purchases.  Well, technically, he said that he would buy one when he was no longer president but that means five years.  As long as Republicans trot out one of the current crop of candidates, Obama can maintain an approval rating lower than even Jimmy Carter and still get re-elected, there's no Ronald Reagan coming along.

The anti-Occupy Wall Street movement, styling themselves Occupy Occupy D.C., held a rally today at Freedom Plaza to call for a “Cease Fire in Obama's War on Nature.” They came out today to protest “the Obama Administration's new policy to kill the barred owl in deference to the spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest.”If that makes no sense, welcome to politics.  If you've never witnessed taxpayer money being spent on lawyers to get around the federal Wilderness Act law in order to comply with the federal Endangered Species Act, you have not been around for long.

John Friend, the founder of Anusara, one of the world’s fastest-growing yoga styles, is being criticized by his yoga followers for being a bit of a rascal.  He has sex with students.  A lot.Well, yoga started off as a sex cult, which doesn't get a lot of presence in the marketing brochures.  But it should.  A lot more men would sign up. Hatha yoga — the parent of the styles now practiced around the globe — began as a branch of Tantra, notes William Broad in the New York Times.

The Obama administration delayed, and then canceled, the Keystone XL Project expansion that would have generated up to 120,000 jobs and lowered the cost of fuel for Americans.  Now, with oil at $108 a barrel, the opposition party has him scrambling to rationalize how that is a good thing.

You read that right.  Not 15 months old.  15 minutes.A team of doctors at Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital determined the girl, diagnosed in the womb with a severe heart ailment, who was born nine weeks premature had only hours to live if they did not perform the surgery. Baby Jaya entered the world with a heart rate of 45 beats per minute. A healthy newborn heartbeat is 120 to 150 beats per minute.

Science 2.0 favorite Garth Sundem has a new book coming out Brain Trust, where he gets lab-tested advice from 93 Nobel laureates, MacArthur geniuses, and National Science Medal winners on topics ranging from surfing to Scrabble.  In this Men's Journal interview, he culls together his favorite tips, including how to lose weight on a diet of Cherry Garcia ice cream and potato chips, and reveals why he does his interviews in his car.Can you live the scientifically perfect life?  Garth thinks so.  

In 1999, a Swedish medical student brought ancient wizardry and horror fiction to life - despite being dead for three hours, Anna Bagenholm was revived and has made a nearly full recovery. It sounds cooler than D&D. Well, science often is - and what was happening in her body on a cellular level during the hours she went without a heartbeat, and what we can learn about how long it takes cells to die, may allow science to really push the boundaries of what it means to be dead.As Miracle Max said in "The Princess Bride", there might be a difference between dead and mostly dead. 

Save your breath.  We've heard all the arguments that Valentine's Day is an artificially manufactured holiday designed to bilk men out of money, just like we have heard postmodernists and humanities people (are they any different today?) argue that Communism is great, it is simply that none of the communist countries do 'real' Communism.  It doesn't matter; if you step out of line for Valentine's Day, the romantic equivalent of the KGB is knocking on your door.But just because it is a marketing-driven, pressure-filled fabrication doesn't mean you can get away with just anything.   Writing on Real Clear Science, Katherine Dickinson notes 6 ways science totally sucks the romance out of Valentine's Day.

The media absolutely gushed over the possibility that smoking leads to brain damage, highlighted in a 'study' Monday.  They were so happy to not have to write about another miracle vegetable or marshmallow cannons and call it 'science' they didn't bother to really read the data, so the news coverage of the study was misleading and highlighted why we need better science journalism.

For decades, tourists visiting Lake George, N.Y. could view the skeletons of soldiers from nearby French and Indian War sites depicted in James Fenimore Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans". In 1993, though, a reburial ceremony put the 18th century remains to rest. Except that never happened.  The collection of remains was taken to Arizona and Canada for study and never returned.  Even Robert Blais, mayor of Lake George since 1971, didn't know. He learned about tit from The Associated Press, who spoke to archaeologists who have dug at the site, fort officials and the anthropologists who have the remains to confirm that the bulk of the skeleton collection is not at the fort.