The Evolution of Mitt Romney and other High School Bullies
A reader wants to know if bullies are a product of evolution. Scientists say yes, but they're on the way out.
View ArticleElements of Color Vision Evolved Before Eyes
We owe our color vision to bacteria. They invented color-detection to tell the time.
View ArticleTemple Grandin's insights into Autism, Animals and Affection
Professor Temple Grandin says her autism helps her get into the heads of other animals.
View ArticleA Physicist says Science Can Address Questions about Gods, etc.
Stephen Jay Gould famously sorted science and relgion into "non-overlapping magisteria". Physicist Victor Stenger thinks otherwise.
View ArticleHappiness in a Bottle and other Brain Drinks Tested
Students love the crop of popular drinks that promise to pick you up and and slow you down, or both at the same time. FDA doesn't have to approve claims.
View ArticleThe Essence of Science
Richard Feynman says the essence of science is experiment, but what's the essence of a good experiment?
View ArticleHow Dogs See the World: The Evolutionary Story of Color Vision
Color vision evolved more than a billion years ago so bacteria could tell time. But new color sensing abilities were lost and then gained again in our evolutionary lineage.
View ArticleNo New Food Since the Dinosaur Era: A Story of Extreme Survival
Wonderful Joel Achenbach Story about Weird Bacteria from Under the Sea Floor.
View ArticleTonight: A Mix of Science Popularization and Experimental Beer
Tonight - the result of a chemist who teaches and a brewer who experiments.
View ArticleMystery Quote on the Essence of Science
Science abandons ideas when they go wrong. Someone famous said this. It's true and it's happening right now, as cancer screening undergoes a big paradigm shift.
View ArticleMencken vs. Millikan: Why the Phrase Religious Scientist isn’t Always an...
H.L. Mencken wrote that religious people could be "technicians" but not real scientists. In "Free Radicals", Michael Brooks disagrees.
View ArticleTest your Statistical Sense
Think you're smarter than a doctor? If you get this right, you probably are.
View ArticleWhite Horses and other Beautiful Mutants
Mutations fuel evolution, and we all carry a few, according to a new paper published in Science. The mutation that led to a snow-white racehorse in New Jersey is striking, but not all of ours are so...
View ArticleThe Latest in the Altruism War: Richard Dawkins vs. E.O. Wilson
In one corner is Richard Dawkins and the other E.O. Wilson. They've been fighting over alturism for more than a year. Can anyone find a clear-cut test that will end this dispute?
View ArticleOlder people do smell different
Monell Researchers showed that volunteers could smell something distinct in body odors from people over 75. But they weren’t so good at attributing the difference to age. For men at least, the old guys...
View ArticleVenus Transits the Sun Tuesday for the Last Time Until 2117
It’s not too soon to start looking for eye protection and an unobstructed view to the west. This Tuesday Venus will eclipse the sun for the last time until 2117. My colleague Tom Avril wrote this...
View ArticleMy Hate Mail Responder Has Awakened
Yes, I do get nasty letters and not all of them come from religious people offended by evolution. I could swear the guy who wrote this one was in the movie line behind Woody Allen in Annie Hall.
View ArticleScientists Ask Why Humans are Nice. I Ask: Are Humans Nice?
Scientists insist humans are altruistic and cooperative and that this calls out for an explanation. Here's why.
View ArticleEither listening to Paul McCartney makes you younger, or there’s something...
Would you believe a scientific paper that said listening to the Beatles song "When I'm 64" made people get younger? It was tested by experiment, and the result came out with "statistical significance,"...
View Article
