I make fun of numerology but I kind of like it. I can like it and still make fun of it because I don't take it too seriously.

Want to claim there is a mathematical secret, far beyond human intelligence, buried in religious texts?  Sure, I will listen, if it's on TV and well produced. It's fun to speculate that prayers and rituals have a pattern that contains some sacred rhythm and people 3,000 years ago were super smart about it and we are not.  It can get a little funky if you take it too seriously, though. Words no longer have meaning if they are instead numerical combinations.  Change a word, or add one, and you would apparently allow sleeping with your neighbor's wife or whatever in the Ten Commandments.

20 years ago in America, members of Congress, armed with studies showing that a college degree meant more lifetime earnings on average than a high school diploma, decided the way to boost income for everyone was to make sure everyone got a college degree.

What changed?  Very little.  The best and richest students still go to the top universities while everyone else does not; but student loan debt has climbed as universities, able to charge unlimited amounts, did just that and hired more people and built more buildings.

The Dropa Stones are puzzling artifact #2 on the 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts list.

These are “The” Dropa Stone images.

What are the Dropa Stones?

Last week I wrote about the anti-science campaign being waged by opponents of the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture. In that post, I promised to address a series of questions/fears about GMOs that seem to underly peoples’ objections to the technology. I’m not going to try to make this a comprehensive reference site about GMOs and the literature on their use and safety. I’m compiling some general resources here, and a list of all FAQs here.

A trial of HPV vaccines in India, which has now been halted and is the subject of an investigation by the Indian government, was examining the safety and feasibility of offering a vaccine against the virus associated with cervical cancer. 

The trial was run by the international health charity PATH and involved more than 23,000 girls from Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh states. A committee of scientists commissioned by the Indian Government to look into the trial said that the study involved a number of serious ethical violations. A new study by researchers at Queen Mary, University of London and the University of Edinburgh suggests that lack of data on cervical cancer in India did not support a trial of the vaccine to prevent the disease.

You'd think European waters would be pretty well documented by now but nature always has surprises. Uroptychus cartesi is a crab in the 5-7 cm (including claws) size range that has been found at nearly a mile deep in the underwater mountains facing the Galician coast - Spain. 

Also intriguing: Its closest relative is in the Caribbean Sea.

Should there be racial quotas in university admissions?  In jobs? What about gender quotas or political ones?

America has more equality than any country in the world and so many organizations and institutions have elected to further relegate racial issues to the past by deemphasizing race or remove it entirely from their decision-making processes.  People will be hired on qualifications so everyone who wins knows they won for the right reasons.

The two most common swimming strokes used by athletes training for the Olympic Games either pull the swimmer through the water like a boat paddle or whirl to the side like a propeller.

Which arm motion works best is a big argument among elite swimmers and their coaches but a university research study has picked a winner - which will be no comfort at at all to actual athletes and their coaches.