Science & Society

One of these loons who thinks all university research is worthless managed to get another op-ed to that effect published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It's worth looking at,…

Must be a zeitgeist thing.  Our own Ground Station Calliope kickstarter fundraiser succeeded, to help fund our Science 2.0 Project Calliope.  Now the NY Times is reporting that other…

This short story is about a surprising effect: you put something on the web without much advertising for it - and it might find perhaps more users than if you publish it in a traditional Journal.…

Botany: A Blooming History The last episode of the series by Timothy Walker majored on the exploits of noble scientists whose aim was Feeding the World The first of these is Nikolái Ivánovich…

Recently, New Scientist (with the Royal Academy of Engineering as competition partner) started a poll/competition where readers could send in a brief statement of what they thought would be the 'nex…

Studying science quantitavely has often taken the form of studying publications, such as citation counts, or identifying author networks. But now, Samuel Arbesman and Nicholas Christakis (2011) argue…

Here's a way to make the bloated costs of health care reform seem more palatable to opponents - it will knock 220,000 illegal immigrants out of the health care system just in California alone. A new…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s federal regulatory process is stifling commercial investment in the development of genetically engineered animals for food, warns a task force led by a U.C.…

On a recent post, I was asked how facilitated communication supporters explain the tests that show FC doesn't work. On something so easily shown to be false, why does this persist? Why are major…

The good news-- I am writing a four eBook series with O'Reilly (publishers of MAKE) on four Do-It-Yourself Space topics!  Woo hoo! Now the advice portion.  I occasionally have a habit of…