Who says you can't go home again?  Not evolutionary biology. Well, sort of. There is a supposition with the proper name of "Dollo's law" which states that evolution is unidirectional and irreversible and once an organism has evolved specialized traits, it can't return to the lifestyle of its ancestors. It hasn't really caught on.

If you've shaken your head at MTBE or ethanol, you know we do a poor job of projecting the real effect of energy sector alternatives accurately.  Advocates are happy to make up numbers but that doesn't work as well after four years of government-funded alternative energy optimism.

In America's modern monolithic science culture, when a desired plan of action is advocated, they call for a 'Manhattan Project of' whatever they are seeking. It's not a great analogy. It reminds people that the last real government science success was 70 years ago and feels rather militant, since the goal of the Manhattan Project was to blow enemies to smithereens.
 

In the current U.S. gun ban debate, both sides are claiming they care about hunters - but it is a dwindling population among Americans and that will cause deer populations to grow out of control, according to new findings in the UK, which has been banning hunting since the days of Robin Hood.

In England, hunting is a pastime only for the wealthy, who can provide two well-known references when they apply with the police and satisfy that they have 'good cause' to possess a gun. The end result is the highest crime levels in the developed world and, as a study by the University of East Anglia (UEA) shows, a runaway deer population problem. 

French women are less likely to spend any time on any physical activities - not sports, exercise or even household chores, compared to women in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and the UK, according to a new survey.

The multi-national survey on sport and exercise habits also reveals that more than 50 percent of French women did not play competitive sport or spend any time on intensive workouts such as running or cycling in a given week. As the French women's football team prepare for this summer's UEFA Women's EURO in Sweden (that's soccer to you Yanks), the countdown to the championships offers an opportunity for women to kick start heart-healthy physical activities and set themselves the goal of being more active.

In Hollywood period pieces, ancient Egypt is disturbingly western-looking actresses rolling out of carpets in magnificent palaces. The reality seems to be different, even for the elites.

Governors and commoners alike suffered from hunger and malnutrition, a whole range of infectious diseases and an extremely high infant mortality rate, according to the Qubbet el-Hawa research project carried out by the University of Jaen, in which anthropologists from the Supreme Council of Antiquities of the Arab Republic of Egypt and the University of Granada sought to separate truth from legend.