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

In 1930, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovered the dwarf planet Pluto while looking at photographs of the night sky. Pluto was the first object to be found in what’s now known as the Kuiper belt, a region that’s also full of asteroids. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft intends to visit one or two of them after it flies past Pluto in 2015.

I used to be tough on Stephen Jay Gould, the great evolutionary biologist, who died in 2002. I found him self-righteous and pompous, in person and on the page. In an August 1995 profile of him for Scientific American I summed up his worldview, which emphasizes the role of randomness, or "contingency," in shaping life, as "shit happens." [More]

Simply forcing the U.S. automotive industry to comply with tougher fuel economy standards won't be enough to create substantial cuts in either greenhouse gas emissions or oil use, says a new report from the National Research Council

GENEVA (Reuters) - Chrysotile asbestos will not be listed as a hazardous industrial chemical that can be banned from import after countries including Canada and Ukraine blocked consensus, a United Nations spokesman said Friday. The decision was taken at a meeting of states that have ratified the Rotterdam Convention despite the treaty's scientific review body having recommended the inclusion of "white" asbestos on health grounds, a U.N. spokesman said.

The Inamori Foundation announced this year's Kyoto Prizes on June 24. It awarded the Basic Sciences prize to astrophysicist Rashid Sunyaev of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and the Advanced Technology prize to materials scientist John W. Cahn of the U.S.

By Philip Ball of Nature magazine Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film Pulp Fiction is packed with memorable dialogue--"Le Big Mac," say, or Samuel L. [More]

By Philip Ball of Nature magazine Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film Pulp Fiction is packed with memorable dialogue--"Le Big Mac," say, or Samuel L.

The Advances section of Scientific American 's July issue chronicles tree-saving tortoises, the largest spider fossil ever discovered, an update on the hunt for dark matter, and many other developments. For those interested in learning more about the news described in the section, a list of selected further reading follows below. "Tortoises to the Rescue," page 16 [More]

The Advances section of Scientific American 's July issue chronicles tree-saving tortoises, the largest spider fossil ever discovered, an update on the hunt for dark matter, and many other developments. For those interested in learning more about the news described in the section, a list of selected further reading follows below. "Tortoises to the Rescue," page 16 [More]

By Kevin Krolicki and Chisa Fujioka FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No.

By Kevin Krolicki and Chisa Fujioka FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - A decade and a half before it blew apart in a hydrogen blast that punctuated the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the No. 3 reactor at the Fukushima nuclear power plant was the scene of an earlier safety crisis. [More]

Such work could solve the nature versus nurture debate, but is morally, ethically impossible

Although the stories told by Pixar Animation Studios take place in richly realized fantasy realms, the science and technology required to create those worlds have distinctly real-world origins. For Cars 2 , set for release in late June, the minds behind such films as Toy Story , Up and WALL-E had to study the complex ways in which light reflects off cars. The movie leaves behind the sleepy desert town setting of the original and takes place in the world of in

For more than 150 years New York City's Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (more commonly called The Cooper Union ) has finished its school years with an annual event

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - A major earthquake of 7.4 magnitude struck in the Pacific Ocean more than 1,000 miles west of Anchorage on Thursday, prompting a brief tsunami warning for part of the remote Aleutian Islands chain. No damage or injuries were reported. The warning, which extended for roughly 800 miles -- from Unimak Pass, northeast of Dutch Harbor, westward to Amchitka Pass, west of Adak Island -- was canceled after a little more than an hour