Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

City-slickers: Have you ever worried that, at any moment, you could be struck dead by a penny flung off the roof of a nearby skyscraper? [More]

This dog does not exist Last week Robert Krulwich, a co-host of the wonderful program Radiolab , Pluto’d pink. In a blog post he noted that pink doesn’t occupy a slot in the familiar colors of the rainbow there’s no P in Roy G. Biv .

In a new experiment, Iceland is looking to replace its smokestacks with well injectors to permanently sequester its carbon dioxide emissions. [More]

When Deidre Ramos moved with her infant son to the Parker Street section of New Bedford, Mass., little did she know that her new neighborhood was toxic. [More]

By Katherine Rowland of Nature magazine As plumes of pollution rise over the booming industrial towns of Asia, satellite data could help to alert people in other regions to the approach of drifting smog.

Japan still struggles with the effects of powerful earthquake, devastating tsunami and multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant [More]

When the 10-meter-high tsunami wave that followed the March 2011 magnitude 9.0 earthquake in Japan receded, it took with it some 23 million metric tons of material, including pieces of buildings, wood, plastics and more. Whereas most of the wreckage sank to the ocean floor, some of it is still floating toward other Pacific nations . The "debris field"--the visible wave of material--has dissipated, leaving the junk invisible to satellites.

The earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan last March created an estimated 25 million tons of debris, large amounts of which washed into the ocean. Soon after the disaster, satellites photographed and tracked large mats of wreckage--building parts, boats and household objects--floating off the Japanese coast

The Bronx Zoo Monkey House. | Photo by Geoff Stearns, Creative Commons

A picture of a hydra, from the Encyclopedia of Life Upon first glance, hydra seem like remarkably simple creatures. The basic description of a hydra would be a tube closed at one end with tentacles surrounding a mouth on the other, made of fragile tissue that can be as slim as two cells thick.

Survey says the majority of Americans who have heard about the Keystone XL pipeline project support it. According to a recent report published by the Pew Research Center, 2/3 of individuals with some prior knowledge of the pipeline believe that the U.S. government should approve its being built.

A popular school of thought, dramatized in the recent TV drama Lie to Me , is that a careful study of facial expressions--especially eye movements--tells investigators if a perp is dissembling. Reality is neither as dramatic nor as decisive. Even experienced investigators average only about a 65 percent success rate, according to researchers.

Three books suggest ways to improve your life.

You are covered with fungus right now. But wouldn't it be cooler if you did it on purpose

Anyone who has ever devoured a triple-chocolate brownie after an intense workout knows how tempting it can be to indulge after behaving virtuously.