Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Dec 14, 2009, 3:32 am
Interesting reading and news items. These items are also bookmarked at my Diigo account. Massively collaborative mathematics The 'Polymath Project' proved that many minds can work together t...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Dec 8, 2009, 7:33 pm
Interesting reading and news items. These items are also bookmarked at my Diigo account. How epigenetics is changing our fight with disease Sequencing the human genome was supposed to answer our que...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Dec 5, 2009, 9:07 pm
Interesting reading and news items. These items are also bookmarked at my Diigo account. Fuelling fears There is an awesome amount of energy tied up in an atom of uranium. Because of that, projectio...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Dec 2, 2009, 9:09 pm
Interesting reading and news items. These items are also bookmarked at my Diigo account. In the Brain, Seven Is A Magic Number Countless psychological experiments have shown that, on average, the lo...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Dec 1, 2009, 11:22 pm
Opening up a Colourful Cosmic Jewel Box (10/29/09) The combination of images taken by three exceptional telescopes, the ESO Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal , the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at E...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Nov 29, 2009, 7:37 pm
Cancer isn't a single disease, and there are many possible things that can "cause" even a single type of cancer. However, a lot of things basically work in the same general way to promote cancer. ...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Nov 2, 2009, 12:26 am
On April 23 of this year the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Telescope detected, just as it was designed to do, a gamma-ray burst (GRB). Within less than a day two of the most powerful Earth-based telescopes ha...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Oct 26, 2009, 1:22 am
Astronomers are beginning to learn significant details of the structure of galaxies in the early universe. And what they're learning is rather surprising: at least some early galaxies are almost a...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Oct 15, 2009, 11:06 pm
NGC 4945: The Milky Way’s not-so-distant Cousin (9/2/09) ESO has released a striking new image of a nearby galaxy that many astronomers think closely resembles our own Milky Way. Though the galaxy i...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Oct 10, 2009, 4:08 am
Now that research into telomeres and telomerase has (finally) garnered a Nobel Prize, it's a good time to write about recent research on the subject. Seminal work on telomeres by Elizabeth Blackb...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Oct 7, 2009, 2:50 am
Inventor Demonstrates Humanoid Robot's Latest AI Abilities (8/25/09) In August 2007, Le Trung invented Aiko, a Yumecom, or "Dream Computer Robot." Although it took only a month and a half to build...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Sep 30, 2009, 11:54 pm
A Look into the Hellish Cradles of Suns and Solar Systems (8/19/09) New images released today by ESO delve into the heart of a cosmic cloud, called RCW 38, crowded with budding stars and planetary sys...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Sep 25, 2009, 11:28 pm
Just under three years ago, in October 2006, some important stem cell research was announced by a Japanese scientific team led by Shinya Yamanaka. The team showed how ordinary mouse skin cells could b...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Sep 24, 2009, 1:16 am
Trigger-Happy Star Formation A new study from two of NASA's Great Observatories provides fresh insight into how some stars are born, along with a beautiful new image of a stellar nursery in our Ga...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Sep 8, 2009, 2:56 am
I suppose that just about everyone knows of the important role the p53 protein plays in protecting cells from becoming cancerous. The protein was identified 30 years ago and its gene (TP53) cloned soo...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Aug 29, 2009, 1:25 am
An Eagle of Cosmic Proportions Located 7000 light-years away, towards the constellation of Serpens (the Snake), the Eagle Nebula is a dazzling stellar nursery, a region of gas and dust where young sta...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Aug 23, 2009, 11:20 pm
Wired's Betsy Mason, who plainly has better taste and better sense than the average science writer, has an entertaining list of 5 Atrocious Science Clichés to Throw Down a Black Hole A bla...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Aug 17, 2009, 1:14 am
If there's just one single point worth making about the biology of cancer, it would have to be "it's complicated". Cells in general, and animal cells in particular, are extremely intricate Ru...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Aug 16, 2009, 7:00 pm
We've discussed the Wnt signaling pathway several times before, most extensively here. The pathway involves a variety of proteins and their corresponding genes. Wnt signaling is especially impo...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Aug 13, 2009, 12:12 am
Stephan's Quintet : A Galaxy Collision in Action This beautiful image gives a new look at Stephan's Quintet, a compact group of galaxies discovered about 130 years ago and located about 280 mi...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Aug 12, 2009, 4:24 am

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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Aug 5, 2009, 11:57 pm
NASA's Spitzer Images Out-of-this-World Galaxy NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has imaged a wild creature of the dark — a coiled galaxy with an eye-like object at its center. The galaxy, cal...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Aug 5, 2009, 11:48 pm
NASA's Spitzer Sees the Cosmos Through 'Warm' Infrared Eyes NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is starting a second career and taking its first shots of the cosmos since warming up. The i...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Aug 4, 2009, 3:47 am
It's common to think of "the media" as providing a window on the "real world" that's imaginative and metaphorical – ostensibly to make it more "entertaining" – yet nevertheless ess...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Aug 3, 2009, 4:47 am
Recently there was a considerable splash (some would unkindly call it hype) about an ongoing simulation project that might produce an "artificial human brain" within 10 years from now: Artificial bra...
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Charles D. posted an article on Science and Reason - Jul 26, 2009, 7:40 pm
Announcements of "breakthroughs" like this often don't pan out. This one might be a little more promising. It involves confirmation of a new, fairly simple material – bismuth telluride (Bi2T...
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