Inquiry is fundamentally different from stated conclusions, even when those conclusions can be legitimately qualified as knowledge (which is to say, as the products of valid inquiry). One can…

"Full many a gem of purest ray sereneThe dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,And waste its sweetness in the desert air." Thomas Gray, "Elegy Written in a…

Last week I posted a column on cost accounting. But I didn’t say it was about cost accounting, and nearly eight hundred people read it.   Let’s try a (ahem) “scientific” experiment,…

I recently saw the article about the findings of Keiko the killer whale's unsuccessful release in 1998.  This was a result of a public campaign to "Free Willy" and reintroduce him into the wild…

A group of University of Utah scientists say they developed a "molecular condom" that could help protect women against AIDS in Africa and other impoverished areas. It's a vaginal gel that turns…

The sex hormone estrogen tempers the killing activity of immune cells called cytotoxic T cells (CTLs), which are known to attack tumor cells and cells infected by viruses. Estrogen plays a critical…

Methane was discovered on Mars in 2004, meaning volcanic activity continues to generate heat below the martian surface or, if you are exceptionally kooky, that life there is generating it. When Mars…

When did executions go from being functional example-setting to being more humane in method? Annulla Linders, a University of Cincinnati sociologist, examined newspaper accounts of 19th and 20th…

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the US, have performed sophisticated laser measurements to detect the subtle effects of one of…

Our offices are in a building in sunny Folsom, California, a town made most famous when Johnny Cash had a concert at the nearby prison (*).   It's one of those full service places where they…