Ocean-bottom methane hydrates offer that possibility .  Researchers are working hard on practical ways to “mine” the stuff. So think about...

Executive summary: excellent book; read it. Henrietta Lacks was a black woman who died in 1951 – far too young, of cancer.  Her cells were...

Martin Rue writes about this simple piece of advice he got from his grandfather: “ Understand how it works. ”  Instead of just understanding...

Here's a very compact collection of statistical formulae , nicely organized and with almost no explanation.  I can't decide whether ...

Dolphins trained by the U.S. Navy to locate sea mines (at the Pt. Loma facility) have located a Howell torpedo from the late 1800s (the on...

Via reader Simi L.:

Cicadas are currently emerging on the east coast of the U.S.  These are interesting large insects that I remember well from my childhood ...

Just go read it ...

This article rants and raves about the cost of college tuition , which for the past 20 years or so has been rising much faster than inflati...

This was taken in Los Angeles.  The two hummingbird species shown (Allen's and Anna's) are both native to us as well...

Marine Sgt. Ross Gundlach served in Afghanistan with Casey, a yellow lab trained as an explosives dog.  Sgt. Gundlach wanted to take care ...

Last night Debbie and I went up to one of our favorite local wildlife viewing spots: the Stonewall Mine Road in Cuyamaca Park, just before d...

From BPOD , of course:

Scott Aaronson doesn't think we're likely to see practical quantum computers anytime soon – if ever.  The rash of recent news concer...

A collection of photos of Cold War KGB (Soviet) gadgets , like the listening device shown below, hidden inside a hollowed-out log:

Sarah Ingram headed the IRS' unit that oversaw tax-exempt organizations up until a short time ago.  She was the boss of that unit when c...

From today's Day-by-Day cartoon (below): ...you don't want to grow up to be like the president, do you?

I certainly can not (it would have to be a good day for me to do 5^5 in my head!), but apparently this fellow can .  Not just that pair of n...

It'a a corker of an Eastern Screech Owl, in the Okefnokee Swamp of southern Georgia...