2008 Breakthrough of the Year

2008 Breakthrough of the Year

While the entertainment industry's awards shows are beginning to clog the airways with completely mindless fluff, a recent award by the editors of Science magazine is going relatively unnoticed. In…
Nematodes And The Evolution Of Parasitism

Nematodes And The Evolution Of Parasitism

Even 150 years after Charles Darwin’s epochal On the Origin of Species many questions about the molecular basis of evolution are still waiting for answers. How are signaling pathways changed by genes…
Closer - A Pharmaceutical Medication For Smallpox

Closer - A Pharmaceutical Medication For Smallpox

Smallpox has a nasty history throughout the world. Caused by poxviruses, smallpox is one of the few disease-causing agents against which the human body’s immune system is ineffective. The human…
Scientific Heroes and Genius Cults

Scientific Heroes and Genius Cults

OK, here's more commentary on some of the interesting stuff over at Cosmic Variance, this time on the cult of genius: During high school or college, many aspiring physicists latch onto Feynman or…
How to go from Physicist to Crackpot

How to go from Physicist to Crackpot

At Cosmic Variance, find out how the once active physicist Frank Tipler now registers high on John Baez's crackpot index: In science, we tend to valorize (to the point of fetishizing) a certain kind…