Outside the very large and the very small, the universe is rather easy to understand in modern times.  At the very large, we have to try and make dark matter and dark energy work.  At the very small,  quantum predictions challenge our best understanding about the nature of space and time, what we know as Einstein's theory of relativity.

The implications of quantum theory have been troubling since it was invented in the early 20th Century. The problem is that quantum theory predicts bizarre behavior for particles, such as two 'entangled' particles behaving as one even when far apart. This seems to violate our sense of cause and effect in space and time. Physicists call such behavior 'nonlocal'.

A flu vaccine that also helps prevent heart disease?

Two researchers presented studies at the 2012 Canadian Cardiovascular Congress saying that the influenza vaccine could also help maintain heart health and ward off strokes and heart attacks. 

Researchers have discovered that the protein resistin, which is secreted by fat tissue, causes high levels of "bad" cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein or LDL), increasing the risk of heart disease. 

High blood cholesterol is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. It can lead to a buildup of plaque in the artery walls and narrowing of the arteries, causing atherosclerosis, which can make it more difficult for blood to flow through the heart and body. 

Watching single strands of DNA being prepped for repair may help researchers understand the origins of breast cancer.

In a new study, graduate student Jason Bell imaged individual strands of bacterial DNA as they were coated with a protein called RecA. Studying how this process works gives insights into the "mediator" proteins responsible that facilitate it. In humans, one of those mediators is the protein BRCA2, which is strongly associated with breast cancer. RecA, called Rad51 in humans, helps the single strand of DNA find its complementary, matching strand elsewhere in the chromosome. The RecA protein has to displace another protein, imaginatively named single-strand DNA-binding protein, to get to the DNA.

Professor Marie-Pierre Laborie of the University of Freiburg and professors Antonio Pizzi and Alain Celzard from the French Université de Lorraine bagged almost $20,000 in prize money and the distinction of being a "German High Tech Champion" for developing "Biofoambark", a hard foam derived from bark extract that can be used as insulating material for homes. 

A little over a year ago I wrote about the continued disturbing trend in government subsidies of 'magic rocks' while claiming they were science - in that instance, commercial solar companies that were being propped up by American taxpayers, with little or no due diligence, because the president and his Energy Secretary said we were in a 'race with China' to produce cheap solar panels, when China has no unions and no environmental policies and therefore a much lower cost basis.

The scientization of politics is taking a cultural or political world view and rationalizing it using science. Since it is election time in America, it has been open season on Republicans, with social scientists, who are around 99% Democrats, looking for ways to convince people to vote for their candidates - but they want to look impartial doing it.

Advanced sensors that monitor extreme pressure and temperature in underground caverns used to store carbon dioxide might be on their way.

CO2 emitted from the combustion of fossil fuels has long been an environmental issue, it represents 84 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to a 2010 analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency. Officials see capturing CO2 emitted by industrial producers like power plants as one possible tool in the fight against climate change. The technique, called carbon capture and sequestration, pumps the captured greenhouse gas into cavities up to two kilometers below the Earth’s surface.

Last time we examined Robert Batterman’s idea that the concept of emergence can be made  more precise by the fact that emergent phenomena such as phase transitions can be described by models that include mathematical singularities (such as infinities). According to Batterman, the type of qualitative step that characterizes emergence is handled nicely by way of mathematical singularities, so that there is no need to invoke metaphysically suspect “higher organizing principles.” Still, emergence would remain a genuine case of ontological (not just epistemic) non-reducibility, thus contradicting fundamental reductionism.