Predicting weather events is more mysticism than science and it's only after the fact that predictions are recalibrated to try and hone in on more accuracy.  Hurricane Sandy in the eastern…

Safe, Tasty, Nutritious Almonds We Shouldn't Take For Granted Sometimes we need to hear about things that are working well in our food system.  I'd like to describe a case where sound regulation…

The rumor mill has it that Elsevier is in advanced talks to buy Science 2.0 fave Mendeley, a platform academics use to collate PDFS and share research and collaborate via a social network (and a…

The HIrisPlex DNA analysis system that can establish hair and eye color from forensic samples in modern crime scenes can also identify details from ancient human remains, according to a paper which…

Aaron H. Swartz was one of the most outspoken and hands-on activists for the transparency movement, which I largely support. He was especially active with open access issues and copyright reform.…

In the post-genomic era, 'omic' technology, and marketing claims to match, promise to understand the biology of various diseases. Metabolomics seeks to look at the chemical fingerprints that cellular…

The Tree of Life is what Charles Darwin first sketched in 1837 to show how species evolved by natural selection. The diagram started at a central point with a common ancestor, then the lines spread…

Researchers at Imperial College have released a video game that was written in part by what they call an Artificial Intelligence (AI) "machine" named Angelina, which is a clever acronym for "A Novel…

Can social networks determine which students need the most help and which ones excel and might be guided to further study or careers in that subject area?  Information Systems graduates say they…

Want a microchip that operates 300 times the speed of chips today? Maybe some day. Tiny, inexpensive silicon microchips developed by a pair of electrical engineers at the California Institute of…