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

This Fourth of July holiday, collectively Americans will eat some 150 million hot dogs, according to industry analysts.

Editor's Note: William Gilly , a professor of biology at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, embarked on new expedition this month to study jumbo squid in the Gulf of California on the National Science Foundation–funded research vessel New Horizon . This is his sixth blog post about the trip. [More]

Chronic pain affects at least one in three adults in the U.S., which is more than the sum total of those with heart disease, cancer and diabetes combined. For many of these 116 million Americans, their pain is severe and eludes available treatments. In addition to the human suffering, the monetary cost of medical treatment and lost productivity has reached $635 billion a year

With the initial fuss about Google+ dying down, the real potential for the social system to challenge popular net apps is breaking through. Foursquare-challenging check-ins If you run the mobile app version of Google+ you can't help but spot the Check-ins feature --it's right there on the front page.

Whales can boom their songs across thousands of kilometers of ocean, and elephants' low-frequency calls can be heard by other pachyderms several kilometers away. But when body size is taken into consideration, these mammoth mammals produce but a relative whisper compared with other animals--especially one odd arthropod. [More]

What do instruments used in religious ceremonies since the fifth century have to do with modern physics? When those instruments can create liquid fountains, wave patterns, and flying droplets--quite a lot. [More]

No matter how fancy mobile gadgets get, they're useless when their batteries run out. With the push toward cloud computing and the always-on wireless culture gaining momentum every day, laptop, tablet and smart phone batteries are being asked to do more despite no real breakthroughs in battery technology hitting the market

Social-gaming powerhouse Zynga just filed its S-1 to raise up to $1 billion in IPO. It appears virtual farms and online cities have treated the San Francisco-startup well: Zynga pulled in $91 million in profit on sales of $597 million. What's more, revenue is rocketing

Instead of waiting around for organs to become available, have shelves of them instantly ready In "Too Hard for Science?" I interview scientists about ideas they would love to explore that they don't think could be investigated. For instance, they might involve machines beyond the realm of possibility, such as particle accelerators as big as the sun, or they might be completely unethical, such as lethal experiments involving people. This feature aims to look at the impossible dreams, the seemingly intractable problems in science.

Hundreds of global warming skeptics are in Washington to hear attacks on mainstream climate science and responses to it, like renewable energy programs and federal initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For Geofrey Greenleaf, the Heartland Institute's conference is an opportunity to gather compelling details to be used against climate change believers during political discussions in the Cleveland area, where he works as an investment adviser.

Why did the absence of the corpus callosum in Kim Peek’s brain increase his memory capacity? --A

Google in legal hot water, Big names (Apple! Microsoft! Sony!) buy big Nortel patents, Facebook battles another would-be owner, RIM's highly public executive brawl. This, and other bits of news from your Fast Company editors, with updates all day. Google Broke Wiretap Laws?

By Verna Gates ORANGE BEACH, Alabama (Reuters) - The fund BP set up to deal with compensation claims after last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill is working too slowly, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday

When a woman gives birth, she may picture in her mind's eye what that new tiny creature might become--a comedian perhaps, or mechanic or physicist. She might envision the adventures and mishaps she will share with her child along the way.

Preface: I am a marine scientist by trade, however, I have run 4 marathons and I am in the midst of training for a half marathon/full marathon during a South Carolina summer. I might not be an expert in studying the physiology of heat related illnesses, but I have enough experience to make it count