Scientists observe that the number of new species to emerge in the recent past (last few million years) is dramatically lower than expected, causing inconsistency with predictions based on genomic … more

from time to time I’ll find myself singing the famous Folgers Coffee jingle: “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup!”

Well, it looks like some bacteria have taken these … more

Efficient plumbing is easy to take for granted until it suddenly ceases to be efficient. This point came home to me rather dramatically a few years ago when I received an enormous bill from our water … more

We couldn’t believe our eyes. For several hours Kathy and I had been hiking through mile after mile of mountain meadows filled with an array of flowers of every imaginable color, shape, and … more

It may seem counterintuitive to thank God for an animal species’ extinction, but new research suggests that the catastrophic elimination of larger mammoth species produced manifold benefits for … more

A world without flowers would be a world with little romance. What would Valentine’s Day be like without flowers? A planet without flowers would lack much of the beauty we now enjoy. Imagine the … more

Amid all the celebration last year over the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of his most famous book, On the Origin of Species,1 I heard little or no mention … more

When human beings first arrived on the terrestrial scene, more than 8,000 species of mammals and more than 21,000 species of birds existed. Today, the number of extant species of mammals stands at … more

We've all watched courtroom dramas or followed real-life trials as attorneys on both sides use witnesses and evidence to argue their case. As a forensic engineer, I am often called upon as an expert … more

Phosphates serve as the backbone for all nucleic acids and are the major repository of chemical energy for metabolism. The human body contains about 11,000 parts per million of phosphorus by weight. … more

This event occurred approximately 2.4 billion years ago. The oxygen content of Earth’s atmosphere rose from just one thousandth of a percent (10-5) of its present level (about 21 percent of the … more