A car run entirely on converted remnants of grass and corn stalks sounds like the stuff of a kid’s imagination. Thanks to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, though, that dream is closer than ever to reality. Through funding by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, researchers have discovered a process [...]

Children who are good at estimating the number of objects in a group also do well in math, according to scientists.   Researchers at Johns Hopkins Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences published their findings in the journal Nature in October.   “One of the most fascinating aspects of our result," according to principle investigator [...]

In Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report,” the main character walks down a long corridor as personalized advertisements chase after him along the walls. A video billboard shouts to Tom Cruise’s character in the film: “John Anderton, you could use a Guinness right about now!” Current advances being made in computer science indicate that real-time advertising, specifically [...]

  College freshmen view recreational use of stimulants and analgesics as only slightly risky compared to the use of other drugs, according to a recent study published in Prevention Science. The study also found that students classified as sensation-seekers are more likely to engage in this kind of drug abuse. Jon Agley, of the Indiana [...]

A longstanding fan of science, I appreciate Natalie Angier’s attempts in The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science (2007) to enliven the field for a lay audience. At times she even succeeds. Still, I wish her book had more of the sciences’ elegant structure and less of the fluff she so [...]

If you’re willing to bet you’d rather read Dante than Dawkins or listen to Bach before Bohr, Natalie Angier’s The Canon probably won’t change your mind—despite its best efforts. The premise of the book is this: The public doesn’t care for science. We find it more socially refined to go to the opera than to [...]

This is not a book review. It may look like one, or sound like one. Hell, it may even smell like one. But I’m here to tell you, it ain’t. Instead, it’s an explanation of why I could not get through Natalie Angier’s The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. Have [...]

Odd though it may seem, a woman’s menstrual blood may one day save limbs, if not lives, according to a new study. “It may sound odd but that’s usually how medical studies are received at first before they start saving lives,” said Leann Tolliver a registered nurse for local medical doctor of cardiology, Carter Henrich, [...]

Richard Dawkins, a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and popular science author, has referred to Natalie Angier’s story book, The Canon, a Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, as “an intoxicating cocktail of fine science writing.” Intoxicating, yes, but it’s less like a cocktail than it is a mug of hot cocoa.   Angier [...]

Photo credit Ever notice that a full moon rises just as the sun sets? Most of us are aware that the moonlight we see is actually sunlight reflecting off the moon so it makes sense that the moon is full when the sun is on the exact opposite side of the earth. And if that’s [...]