You can now listen to the recent debate between Cardinal George Pell and Dan Barker. It will convince you that the Catholic church is totally lacking in any intellectual criterion for appointing cardinals. Practically the first wor...

When Google started "suggesting" the most popular search phrases below its query box, I was creeped out. Especially when I saw what it suggests for "is Obama". Yes, I was happier when I didn't know what other people were typing int...

Kent Hovind's infamous alma mater has put together a collection of responses because they are "under attack!" Only they aren't—they're being laughed at. And whoa, these pages are even more hilarious. (Warning: all of the links below...

The comment that has stirred up the most condemnation from the press is Richard Dawkins' mention of "Pope…Nazi," which everyone assumes was about the current Pope. Wrong. Everyone knows the current Pope is most properly addressed as...

There's almost no on answering the Collective Imagination Question today, so this is your chance! Click here. And while you are over there, have a look at my latest post on Japanese Ring Tone Therapy. Read the comments on this p...

Hat tip to Steve...

As some of you might know, all of my 'free' time last month was eaten up by a major project (a book chapter) that had a very tight deadline. This meant no time whatsoever for such stuff as blog-writing, hence the (mostly) recycled b...

While I was on blogcation, I got an email from the watchdog group Stinky Journalism, complaining that prominent science author and professor Jared Diamond (Collapse, Guns, Germs and Steel) was in the hot seat again. (You may remembe...

And Evacuation Day, which truly is a silly holiday, is a wonderful way to allow everybody to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day without violating all that church and state stuff. One unique Massachusetts tradition is that, on this day, ...

Emancipated from the rigor of science, we are free to propose any fanciful idea and exercise our imaginations to the fullest — all that matters is that you have a cool story with T-rexes biting the heads off people. Get right on ...

Over the past week I've been asked via email and on message boards about about David Shenk's new book, The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ Is Wrong. Since I haven't read the book I...

I knew a guy who who was a highly placed person at Harvard College, and had gone to the College for his undergraduate education. I'll call him "Dean." Prior to his attending Harvard, he had already become a major fan of Henry David...

There's been a growing rumble in the world of scientific publishing for the past several months, focusing especially on the nature and practices of the journal Medical Hypotheses. Briefly put, MH is a non-peer-reviewed journal that ...

It was an eventful day at CITES for sharks. Oceana released a report today about the international trade of shark fins, and a non-controversial, non-binding measure on sharks failed to pass. Marine scientist Elizabeth Griffin talks ...

Scientists have unearthed the remains of one of the Worlds rarest fossils - in downtown Ottawa. The 450 million year old fossil preserves the complete skeleton of a plumulitid machaeridian, one of only 8 such specimens known. Plumul...

After I read the now-infamous paper by I. Kouper, entitled "Science blogs and public engagement with science: practices, challenges, and opportunities", I was left in some confusion as to how the author selected 11 blogs to study. ...

A ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta), photographed at the Bronx Zoo. Read the comments on this post......

I'm writing some things that are more unruly than usual. I'm also sleeping 12 hours a day for very good medical reasons. Rumors that I am addicted to Hulu are completely incorrect, although I did enjoy watching the maiden voyage ...

Shark attacks are events of speed and violence. When they have locked on to a prey item sharks seem to come out of nowhere, and though they can be quite gentle with their jaws (as on occasions when they are unsure about whether so...

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is looking for his male Irish forebear using genetics: Well, it turns out that the men sharing that Ui Neill haplotype tended to have certain surnames. If we use those surnames, we narrow the number of possibil...