Classical Cepheid Variables, commonly called Cepheids, are unstable stars larger and much brighter than the Sun which expand and contract in a regular way, taking anything from a few days to months…

On the eve of Thanksgiving, we tend to start our annual pondering about how we might give more to our friends and family, and maybe even to the world. Citizen scientists--whether they consciously…

OK, I've had just about enough of the stupid statistics being put out by the FDA regarding full body scanners at airports. I'm not sure why everyone is behaving as if such a scan is a singular event…

As a young guy, one of the most fascinating aspects of World War II to me was the breaking of the Enigma Code.   Codebreaker Alan Turing created the machine at Bletchley Park in 1939 and it…

Last week while baking muffins with my son's preschool class, I set fire to the school. Okay, technically I didn't set it on fire—it was only butter smoke from the tin that set off the alarm,…

The Nov 22 launch of the heaviest satellite known has everyone a twitter.   A Delta IV Heavy booster out of Kennedy put up NROL-32, a "classified spy satellite cargo for the U.S. National…

It used to be that broader understanding of zoology meant intuitively that new species would be harder to find and so it followed that there would be fewer of them when found - that is the nature of…

I think there is something deeply wrong with our view of science. The word itself, Science (with a capital "S"), sits alongside other monoliths such as Religion, Art, Music, Literature, Politics and…

On paper, collaborations seem like a good idea because the costs for one agency or country are lower.  In reality, says a new analysis by the National Research Council, federal agencies should…

If you were a young person watching "The Empire Strikes Back" and saw Darth Vader clearly being more powerful than everyone else yet not being all that evil - and with Yoda telling Luke how much…