In several posts the question of biological costs is invariably mentioned in discussing evolution.  These costs are normally of the metabolic or fitness type.  Metabolic costs are…

In the last two generations, the designation 'spiritual but not religious' has become popular. It's hard to know what it means - atheists and religious people are at least taking some sort of stand…

Parasites comprise a large proportion of the diversity of species in every ecosystem but they are rarely included in analyses or models of food webs.  Would it make a difference? A new paper…

If you want to make sure your extra-terrestrial efforts can survive a nuclear attack, working inside the Jamesburg Earth Station on, fittingly, ComSat Road, just outside Carmel, California, is a fine…

David Brin first wrote this in 2006, summarizing a controversy that was then emerging among members of the community engaged in SETI, the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligent civilizations. Since…

If you watch musicals from the 1950s or teen comedies from the 1990s, you find a lot of movies with different titles but the themes and plotlines barely change; two friends competing for a girl in…

A new statistical estimate projects that the world population could reach nearly 11 billion by the end of the century, according to a United Nations report issued June 13 - about 8 percent more than…

In the past 11,00 years, there have been 22 large and megathrust earthquake shaking events along the Pacific coast of North America, an average recurrence interval of about 500 years, though the time…

X-ray experiments have found chemical traces of the original 'dinobird' Archaeopteryx and dilute traces of plumage pigments in a 150 million-year-old fossil. Only 11 specimens of Archaeopteryx have…

Should food with ingredients from genetically engineered crops - "GMOs" - be labeled?  Many argue that consumers have a "right to know" about this.  Ok, if the real reason for…