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Over the last two weeks, pink slime has become the safe food movement's equivalent of the Kony 2012 campaign. 

Using computerized machine learning and complex algorithms, UCLA neuroscientists are making advances in 'brain reading' where computers can decode our brain to understand our thoughts.

      Here’s some bad news for those of you who like to think you can think rationally about risk. You can’t. You know all those thoughtfully considered views you have […]

The mobile health revolution, which started and took off in overseas emerging markets, is rapidly making its way to the U.S. The past few months have brought a surge of […]

Several of the most recent recipients of the Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry and medicine share their work habits, their inspiration and what else put them on the path to Nobel gold.

     Stress. It is probably one of the biggest risks we face. The more worried you are that you might get sick, the more likely it is that you will, […]

N.A.S.A.'s latest Mars rover will launch later this month. The size of an S.U.V. and powered by decaying plutonium, it will search for water and past signs of life beneath the martian soil. 

If you ever want to make even the most cosmopolitan of your friends speechless, telling them you have volunteered to travel to Newark, New Jersey, so you can masturbate to orgasm in an fMRI is a great way to start.  Once they overcome the shock, chances are they will start to ask questions. Most I was able to answer.

"Americans are happier when national wealth is distributed more evenly than when it is distributed unevenly," says a recent study examining current and past wealth inequality. 

One of the themes in my book that elicited attention was my “new monogamy” section, where I explore ethically non-monogamous marriages, and the gray zone of don’t ask, don’t tell […]

Today marks the start of the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the world’s great scientific meetings. Many of the panels held in Vancouver […]

As the kind of writer who keeps his finger squarely on the cultural pulse, I’ve just watched the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan romantic comedy “You’ve Got Mail” for the first time […]

Love is an epiphany. Maybe that’s the sweetest romantic dream of all. By the big bang theory of mate selection, our soul mate is out there somewhere, and they’re going […]

This author explains convincingly that we haven’t been concerned enough with our children’s moral virtue—or acquiring the habits required to flourish as  free and rational animals in a society such as ours. Aristotle, […]

The Consumer Electronics Show is over and Mat Honan, senior reporter for Gizmodo.com, is depressed.   He wrote a lyrical piece about the  melancholia created by a three-day Bacchanalia of […]

If you ever want to make even the most cosmopolitan of your friends speechless, telling them you have volunteered to travel to Newark, New Jersey, so you can masturbate to orgasm in an fMRI is a great way to start.  Once they overcome the shock, chances are they will start to ask questions. Most I was able to answer.

The communication of chemistry to wider society is difficult because of ‘chemophobia’, its inherent complexity and its lack of unifying grand themes, explain Matt Hartings and Declan Fahy in an […]

It was a dark and stormy night. By starting A Wrinkle in Time with the most famous “bad” opening in literary history—the same Edward Bulwer-Lytton line later adopted by Snoopy—Madeleine […]

My August 20th blog entry, “MARS Updates Including The Curiosity Rover, The Flow of Liquid Water and Possible Manned Missions” mentioned that NASA was preparing to launch its latest Mars […]

I may have mentioned that, at Skepticon IV, JT Eberhard gave a fantastic talk on why the skeptical community must concern itself with mental illness. For the most part, the […]

Ray Kurzweil is an expert at predicting the future. In tracking our progress in the technological-evolutionary journey, Kurzweil has identified six epochs, each of which is characterized by a major paradigm shift.

Martian soil could be very capable of supporting life, new data suggests. Previous analysis thought the surface was full of oxidizing compounds that would prevent its growth.

The first book of philosophical essays in years with a shot at being advertised on the evening news asks what big questions are posed by society's acceptance and men's use of Viagra. 

We may like to think that “it’s just a game”, but rooting for our teams, and all the other groups to which we belong, is tied to nothing less than our very drive to survive.

The role of gut bacteria may extend beyond the stomach and intestines all the way to the brain. In a new study, disrupting the normal gut flora of mice leads to changes in the animals' behavior.

Today we have another guest post on Eruptions, this time by Morgan Salisbury, a Ph.D. candidate at Oregon State University. He will be taking you to look at some of […]

As meeting people online has gradually lost its stigma, dating sites are turning to scientists to match people according to the new rules of mating, which are no longer dominated by necessity. 

Chef Wylie Dufresne believes in playing with his food—but not in the usual sense of the phrase. In his popular New York restaurant, wd-50, Dufresne applies molecular gastronomy, a field […]

The title of Nathan Mhyrvold's Modernist Cuisine, a 40 lb. compendium of food history and philosophy, is meant to evoke the radicalism of 20th-century artists like Picasso and Pound, whose motto was "make it new."

Is it true that deep, sustained reading is an experience only a small minority of people “naturally” enjoy? And if so, does it follow that since “some current college students […]