The ring-shaped stains of tiny dissolved particles, like a coffee stains from the bottom of a cup,  that develop after a liquid has evaporated hold a physics mystery - while the particles on the outside of the ring are neatly organized, chaos reigns on the inside of the ring where the particles seem to have collected in a great hurry. 

Results from the first study of the Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) in forests show that the invasive insect can easily spread from tree-lined city streets to neighboring forests. Successful ALB eradication efforts in Chicago, and ongoing eradication efforts in Boston, New York, and other U.S. cities have focused exclusively on urban street trees and the ongoing ALB infestation in Worcester, Mass., is the only outbreak so far that has allowed the beetle to invade nearby closed-canopy forests.

This time of year, hurricanes take over the news coverage. Hurricane season is one of those annual events nobody really looks forward to. And yet, there they come, year after year. This has spurred some people to question whether or not hurricanes can potentially be controlled. Or at least influenced.

But first, how do hurricanes form? I’ll choose the lazy option here and quote the brief but elucidating explanation given by Ross N. Hoffman:

Dan Olmsted is pissed at Autism Speaks and wants them to shut up and go away, all because of Dr. Dawson's coverage of the IOM report this past week.

King Solomon is credited with a lot.   He knew everything, he could turn lead into gold, conjure demons and become invisible. Jamaicans even credit him with discovering marijuana.  If you know the Captain Marvel comic book superhero, the keyword he uses to change from Billy Batson to Captian Marvel is an acronym, SHAZAM - the S stands for Solomon and Solomon gave Cap wisdom.(1)

But he was also the prototype for Faust.  According to the Talmud, written around 500 A.D., Solomon cut a deal with the devil to build the great temple of Jerusalem – with disastrous consequences.

I've seen cephalopods pop up in a few video games here and there, but The Game Bakers' Squids is the first one that looks both adorable and fun enough that I want to play it. (Which is a big deal, for me--I don't make time to play video/computer games the way I used to. Though, there was that time a few months ago when we had some friends over and played through the original 16-color version of Monkey Island . . . )

Despite the hopes of most and the preconceptions of many, news from the Lepton-Photon conference in Mumbay, India, report that the Standard Model is as alive and strong as it has ever been. Indeed, the recent searches for Supersymmetry by ATLAS and CMS, now analyzing datasets that by all standards must be considered "a heck of a lot of data", have returned negative results and have placed lower limits on sparticle masses at values much larger than those previously investigated (by experiments at the Tevatron and LEP II).

If you're one of those cultural mullahs who thinks smoking causes lung cancer - even a cigar or a pipe - you can stop reading.  This article is not for you.   I have never smoked a cigarette in my life but gradual efforts by the modern temperance movement to ban smoking everywhere(1) should be resisted by anyone claiming they care about independence, tolerance and diversity.(2)

Do you know what a creepmeter measures?  Measurement is the heart of science.  What distinguishes science from opinion or philosophy is measureables.  The root of science is facts that are determined by actual observation, compared, then extended into predictions.

Any good measurement has three parts: the number value, the units you're using, and the error.  If I say I am 6 feet tall, that's a number (6) and a unit (feet), with a presumed error of 'within an inch or two'.  All three parts are crucial.

One of the stranger claims of anti-science hippies is that there is not only a difference between 'organic' food (and apparently 'inorganic' food, whatever that could be) in structure - and if you believe that, go read Huffington Post, I won't take it personally - but also in nutrition.