Lasers (acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation) were invented roughly half a century ago, and in that time, they have found their way to industry, medicine, all kinds of…

Germany shortens school ("turbo abi") and abolishes mandatory military training at the same time! This year, those that otherwise would have marched to the shooting range instead squeeze in between…

Usually, you have to be insanely, insanely lucky to name a species. Not only that, after the ages spent finding and researching your animal, you then have the laborious process of getting your new…

The British have their Copley medals, the French the CNRS Gold medals, the Germans have Leibniz awards, and the Dutch... they have their Spinoza prizes. Each year three to four Spinoza laureates…

Recombination, the process by which a molecule of (usually) DNA is broken and joined to another one, is one of the main sources of genetic diversity in sexual organisms. Meiotic recombination takes…

At the beginning of the year I mentioned this European cephalopod conference, where they were going to talk about new laws regulating the use of squids, octopuses, etc. in experiments. Sadly, I…

Science can't catch a break this week.   A site devoted to ridiculing Democrats is faux outraged that the NIH funded $3.6 million to study the menstruation cycles of rhesus monkeys on any number…

Woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) roamed the planet for more than a million years, ranging from Europe to Asia to North America. Nearly all of these giants vanished from Siberia by about 10,000…

Did the Chinese come to East Africa before the Europeans? China says yes and, to prove it, Chinese and Kenyan archeologists are now searching the African coast for the fabled wreck of a Ming dynasty…

We’ve just finished a documentary on Stephen Hawking and I hand Bobby the dvd and ask him to put it in. “What now, Mama?”   “Wait and see,” I tell them. As  the  film…