OK, so when I was about six, I was a really weird kid. I used to make a little mask out of Scotch tape and cover most of my face, save the eyes, nose, and mouth. It was odd, stupid and really fun; that's all a six year old really cares about.
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Last week, the TalkingScience team trekked out to Staten Island to put on a Science Cabaret for students at I.S. 34. We were accompanied by a bee keeper, a biologist, a 3D artist from Hollywood, a few flamenco dancers, and our L'Oreal-UNESCO award-winning emcee ("Cindy the Scientist"). Cindy is a great story-teller, and while she was researching the history and science behind flamenco dancing, she came across some an interesting bit of information about the Rio Tinto, a river in Spain and a region that was once populated by flamenco-dancing ...

I can't help but worry about some of the new electronic polling machines, those without paper trails. We've been seeing reports on the web and on TV of some that are registering incorrect tallies; press one name, up pops the opposing candidate on the screen.
Let's hope these are only minor glitches and can be corrected. Let's hope that the trend is toward paper ballots that are filled out by hand and read by machine. This way even if there are long lines, people can fill out the ballots while ...

"No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power." --Jacob Bronowski
Politics is based on everything that science is not. Years of study are largely unnecessary. Politicians need only the ability to read and write 4 things: Yeah, Nay, their own signature, and the digits on the check they are receiving by lobbyists to alter their votes.
But what about facts?
Most people have never heard of the IPCC report, let alone the opening statement, the entirety of section 2 and much of section 6.1. Apparently, neither has ...

In 2005, a spill of organic solvents from a uranium mill south of Canon city killed 40 ducks and geese. Now, however, the question is whether incidences of water pollution from the mine, owned by Cotter Corp. is behind a slew of health problems experienced by the local population.
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First, I should tell you that the film is in Spanish, and if you can read, it's worth watching. Oh, and it's a math movie. So those who don't like math or reading are better off renting Dumb and Dumber-- but for everyone else, Fermat's Room is a fantastic movie, full of suspense and deception.
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"Art-Science?" hissed an anonymous opera-loving artist and dean at the City University of New York, when I asked if she would be going to see the Metropolitan Opera's production of Dr. Atomic. "Science will only dilute true art. I expect it to bomb. I'll read the review to confirm," she snapped.
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By Summer Ash

I didn't expect to question my self-worth as an astronomer while watching the third Presidential debate last night, but that's what happened.

Senator McCain's relentless harping on Senator Obama for destroying "Joe the Plumber's" American dream was just too much. Let me tell you about my American dream. It has to do with stars.
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Around this time every year, scientists wring their hands hoping to win a Nobel prize--I know I was. Maybe next year. Even if I didn't get the gold this year, I was pretty excited to hear about the Chemistry awardees--a three-way award between Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien for the discovery and characterization of green fluorescent protein (GFP). GFP was isolated from the jelly fish, Aequorea Victoria, and it has revolutionized the way biologists work.
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It's Nobel Prize season, and the inevitable question is appearing on China-related websites.
"China has become the third country to have a man walk in space. But as yet, no Chinese citizen has won a Nobel Prize. This puzzles the Chinese."
In the Olympics, China gunned for gold, and got it. The government sports training system, and strategy of targeting events where competition was weak, proved effective. This summer China won the largest number of gold medals of any country.
The science community in China would love to score a similar ...