Two years ago we were helping my mother-in-law get settled into her new place and, with the manual labor done and my usefulness diminished, she and her daughters talked details and I sat in a chair. A Hallmark movie was on. I had never seen it before but I was convinced I had.

After about 10 minutes, when a seemingly avoidable misunderstanding occurred onscreen, I began taking notes on my phone and talking about the action. My family asked what I was doing and I declared that this was brilliant storytelling. This formula could work with anything, it was that rock solid.

Scientists have discovered remnants of the world's oldest fossil forest in of all places, a sandstone quarry in Cairo, New York.

It is believed the extensive network of trees is around 386 million years old and spread into Pennsylvania and beyond.

The Trump administration has issued a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) that would allow for the importation of certain prescription drugs from Canada. In addition, the Administration is announcing the availability of a new draft guidance for industry that describes procedures drug manufacturers can follow to facilitate importation of prescription drugs, including biological products, that are FDA-approved, manufactured abroad, authorized for sale in any foreign country, and originally intended for sale in that foreign country.

Board games, where you play on an actual board, were once common in every household. Games have a long history, thousands of years, but board games took off in diversity in the 20th century, thanks to "Monopoly" and then others.

It's impossible to predict the future so they may never again reach the peak popularity they once had, or they may stage a resurgence as young people want to take a break from an increasingly digital society. They may even become bigger than ever. I never once played Texas Hold 'em as a young guy in Pennsylvania but in the 2000s it took off nationwide and has now become the most popular form of poker.(1) My kids have never played draw or stud but I showed them how to play Hold'em.

Mitochondria, the energy factories in most of our cells that convert the fat, carbohydrates, and protein we eat into a common energy currency used by our bodies, also set off molecular alarms when cells are exposed to stress or chemicals that can damage DNA, such as chemotherapy, according to a new study in Nature Metabolism.

This basic research could one day lead to applied science, like cancer treatments that prevent tumors from becoming resistant to chemotherapy.

Filtered coffee has been linked to lower risk of type 2 diabetes by an epidemiology group.

That's an awfully narrow claim, right? Like a baseball player arguing he led the team in 9th inning doubles in the month of August.(1) Coffee has already been touted as a way to lower risk of type 2 diabetes for a while. Before you get too excited about this "filtered" coffee preventing diabetes, we need to remember what they are measuring - numbers, not coffee. This is not a science finding, it is an "exploratory" result. Drinking coffee, filtered in paper or Turkish in a pan, is not going to prevent diabetes any more than a juice cleanse prevents whatever that stuff is claiming to prevent.

Humans have a “natural” lifespan of around 38 years, according to a new method we have developed for estimating the lifespans of different species by analyzing their DNA.

Extrapolating from genetic studies of species with known lifespans, we found that the extinct woolly mammoth probably lived around 60 years and bowhead whales can expect to enjoy more than two and a half centuries of life.

Our research, in Scientific Reports, looked at how DNA changes as an animal ages – and found that it varies from species to species and is related to how long the animal is likely to live.

While definitions vary, to “cancel” in today’s lingo means to remove people and cultural products from consumption and popular conversation. This is done in light of actions that make them unworthy of praise or critique.

In March of 1869,  the chemist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev made a presentation to the Russian Chemical Society and outlined patterns in elements that led him to postulate his periodic table of the existing 63 elements. Since a new one was being discovered about once per year, he also made sure to leave room for additions and even hypothesized a few more.

Chemistry was the future, understanding elements was key, he and others believed, and they turned out to be right. If you are reading this article on a cell phone, notes New York University, you're holding at least 30 different naturally-occurring elements, including lithium. 

Christmas and mistletoe: have you ever simply asked yourself … why? I have studied plant parasites like mistletoe for almost ten years, and I’m here to tell you that the answer is absolutely fascinating.

In Norse mythology, Baldur (younger brother to magic-hammer-wielding Thor), was the subject of a premonition from his mother Frigg, who could see the future: he would be killed. Frigg tackled this head on, extracting an oath from every object on Earth, to avoid harming her son. This was agreeable to all … except mistletoe, which was overlooked.