There is culture cold war in America over education. One side says American kids are under-performing because teachers are not using agreed upon criteria and so students don't do as well as some other countries on international standardized tests. The other side says American kids are under-performing because the government wants to 'teach to the test' so students do better on international standardized tests.

Both sides are manned by teachers, educational institutions and unions.

Do tests adequately predict academic success? Not really. When American students took the first international standardized test in the early 1960s, they came in next-to-last. But since then, those same students have dominated worldwide science output and Nobel prizes.

As you know, when heat in soup is increased, it will eventually boil.

When time and space are heated, an expanding universe can emerge, without requiring anything like a "Big Bang", according to a new math paper.

The math behind this phase transition between a boring empty space and an expanding universe containing mass is a connection between quantum field theory and Einstein's theory of relativity. Everybody knows of the transitions between liquid, solid and gaseous phases. But also time and space can undergo a phase transition, as the physicists Steven Hawking and Don Page pointed out in 1983. They calculated that empty space can turn into a black hole at a specific temperature.

The Promised Land means different things to different people. To geologists, the site of some of the largest volcanic eruptions in earth's history might fit the bill, and that means Utah is a pretty good place to be.

30 million years ago, more than 5,500 cubic kilometers of magma erupted during a one-week period near a place called Wah Wah Springs. By comparison, this eruption was about 5,000 times larger than the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption.

Fortunately they are no longer active.

Dinosaurs were already extinct during this time period, but less well known is that 25-30 million years ago, North America was home to rhinos, camels, tortoises and even palm trees. Evidence of the ancient flora and fauna was preserved by volcanic deposits.

Mothers get all the blame these days but a new paper led suggests that the father's diet before conception may play an equally important role in the health of their offspring. It also raises concerns about the long-term effects of current Western diets and of food insecurity.

A new review outlines the health effects of silica, and calls for action to reduce illness and death from silica exposure at work.

The home team holds the advantage over visitors, at least in the plant world, but a handful of genetic adaptations could even the playing field, according to a new paper.

Genetic tradeoffs, in part, explain the rich diversity of species on earth. If all plants could perform well in all climates, the world would have similar flora from the poles to the Equator. Trade-offs, however, such as protection from freezing temperatures in exchange for growing larger, must be made by plants, limiting the regions where they can flourish.