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Programmable thermostats, which now make up about half the U.S. sales of all thermostats, could be more trouble for some than they're worth

The Belief Instinct by Jesse Bering.

Back in 1995, a few of the editors at Scientific American decided to resurrect a tradition of a previous generation of editors, who saw fit to publish a joke column in each April issue. This particular April Fools piece came to be with a little luck: back then. as the editor of the Amateur Scientist column, I use to look for projects that gave some hands-on insight to one of the feature articles in the same issue

There are so many news stories about antibiotic resistance these days that you may be tempted to ignore them all just to preserve your sanity. But there is a kind of hierarchy of danger when it comes to figuring out which stories are most deserving of your attention

World without Fish by Mark Kurlansky. Illustrated by Frank Stockton.

For a complete list of our coverage, see our In-Depth Report " The Japan Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Crisis "

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - America's bats are dying in their hundreds of thousands due to a mysterious illness called white-nose syndrome, and efforts to save them could prevent billions of dollars in agricultural losses, scientists say. [More]

Some 3.2 million Americans have chronic hepatitis C , an infection that can linger in the body for years before producing symptoms. It can eventually lead to serious liver scarring and cancer. And most infections in the U.S

Graphic artist Isao Hashimoto depicts the startling number of nuclear bombs that have gone off between 1945 and 1998, from the early U.S. [More]

2011 is the International Year of Chemistry. So scientists at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim raised a glass

By Richard A. [More]

This Friday, April 1, begins a month-long participatory blogging project at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, N.C., called Experimonth: Mood . The culmination of many ideas and personal experiments by museum staff members, their families and friends, Experimonth has morphed from a personal project centered around New Year's Resolutions into an effort to pair local researchers with our community in meaningful ways

Dear EarthTalk : I understand a recent government report concluded that our global food system is in deep trouble, that roughly two billion people are hungry or undernourished while another billion are overconsuming to the point of obesity. What’s going on?

If you type "Japanese barberry" into a search engine, the first result will likely be a National Park Service web page designed to look like a "Wanted" poster. "LEAST WANTED" is written across the top. It’s a fact sheet about the ecological threat posed by this invasive shrub.

A NASA spacecraft has captured the first-ever image of Mercury taken from orbit around the planet.