Science & Technology

Much of disease treatment relies on a simple principle: find out what agents in the body are causing a problem and eliminate them. People can employ very broad-sweeping measures to eliminate these problems. A good example of this is the use of antibiotics. For diseases like salmonella and tetanus, the use of the proper antibiotics […]

People call pest-removal companies every day to rid their homes and yards of small creatures that have become a nuisance. Gophers tear up manicured lawns and cockroaches skitter along floors spreading germs. Most people are unaware that Emerald Bay at Lake Tahoe has a similar but much larger problem. Corbicula fluminea, more commonly known as […]

In many ways, biological evolution at the molecular scale is a series of small steps. But scientists have not agreed on exactly how those steps add up to create entirely new genes, the molecular sequences on DNA that code for an organism’s vital functions. By conducting controlled evolution on a strain of Salmonella bacteria, a […]

Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust — we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper. — Albert Einstein Einstein had an ability, rare among physicists, to convey the hardcore science he was so passionate about in a poetic way that struck a chord with anyone who listened. Similarly, Mozart […]

If we could predict the future, what would the world be like? There would be millions of lottery winners every day. There would be no freak accidents. The stock market would be zero risk. There would be no deaths by natural disasters. But we cannot predict the future; no matter how accurate our formulas, algorithms, […]

It is no secret that the planet is running out of resources, some faster than others. Many sources predict we will run out of fossil fuels within the next century. Global agriculture is producing more food than ever with less arable land, and still one in seven people are going hungry, a number said to […]

Digital Adderall The Problem It’s late at night and a big paper is due tomorrow morning. There is an empty Word document staring angrily back from the monitor. What follows is a few minutes on Facebook, and then another few minutes spent checking emails, getting a snack, Youtube, etc. In retrospect, the hard part wasn’t […]

Albert Einstein is one of the most respected scientists of all time. His ideas and theories have changed the way that physicists view the universe. Some of his ideas were so ahead of their time that there has never been a way to prove or disprove them.  However, with a recent discovery of a new […]

A few months ago, the science journalism community, myself included, and a large portion of the nation’s population went justifiably apeshit over Todd Akin’s asinine remarks on female physiology. It is unsettling enough that someone so ignorant is a member of the United States House of Representatives (and has been for 11 years), but to […]

For 10 days out of the month, UC Davis graduate student Amy Williams gets to wake up on Mars. Along with the several hundred other members of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) team, Williams synchronizes to the rhythm of the Curiosity rover’s workday as it scours the surface of Gale Crater some 140 million miles […]

Thirty years ago, Stanley Prusiner had a heretical idea: that proteins, the complex molecules involved in virtually all cell functions, could go bad and set off deadly brain disorders — such as mad cow disease — which, at the time, were thought to be caused by viruses. He called these mutant proteins “prions.” Fifteen years […]

Great intellects always exist. However, it is far more seldom that those intellects extend far enough to shape history — far enough to execute and articulate logic to the degree that the rules of the game have to be re-written. For a great deal of time, the Earth was flat, and then human reasoning concluded […]