Skeptophilia

Finding unequivocal evidence of extraterrestrial life is not as easy as science fiction makes it sound. The problem is, we're biased tow...

The always-hilarious Gary Larson, whose ability to create absurd combinations of cultural references is unparalleled, had a Far Side  comic ...

The history of dyes is actually way more interesting than it sounds. People have been coloring cloth (and pottery, and cave walls, and their...

Last week I ran across an article in the journal Science  about our capacity for creating "mirror life," and the risks thereof .  ...

One of the more fascinating bits of biochemistry is the odd "handedness" (technically called chirality ) that a lot of biological ...

The human/alien hybrid is a common trope in science fiction.  From the angst-ridden half-Vulcan Mr. Spock, to the ultra-competent and powerf...

Sometimes I run into a piece of scientific research that's so odd and charming that I just have to tell you about it. Take, for example,...

I'm currently reading planetary scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson's wonderful book The Sirens of Mars , about the search for signs of ...

There are a lot of hurdles in detecting extraterrestrial life, and that's not even counting the possibility that it might not exist. Hon...