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

In the world of science, it s publish or perish. Researchers who publish a greater number of papers in high-status journals are more likely then their colleagues to win tenure positions, research grants, and prestigious reputations. The competition is fierce enough to compel some scientists to cheat.

Comparison of "habitable zone" of Kepler 22 system and our solar system (NASA/Kepler) Today sees the announcement that one of the “candidate” planets listed from NASA’s Kepler mission back in February is now confirmed, and it’s a key one. At 2.4 times the diameter of the Earth the planet Kepler 22-b also orbits its parent star (which is a slightly less massive G-dwarf star than the Sun and 25% less luminous) in 290 Earth-days, which places it within the nominal “ habitable zone “. This system is about 600 light years from us.

Indore is the fastest-growing city in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, India. The industrial center has grown rapidly in the past 20 years, reaching a population of nearly 3.3 million people.

Deep beneath the waters of Costa Rica, dozens of crabs are waving their claws in unison, in what seems to be a rhythmic performance. It’s almost as if these crabs are locked in a ritual dance. But these charming crabs are not dancing.

Scientists have discovered the largest black holes yet, and they're far bigger than researchers expected based on the galaxies in which they were found. [More]

Quantum theory is one of the most profound discoveries of humanity. In my view, it s on a par with Cuban cigars and single malt whiskey. The theory has been hugely successful in showing us the inner workings of the universe.

Scientists have long hunted for a pattern of brain activity that signals consciousness, but a reliable marker has proved elusive. For many years theorists have argued that the answer lies in the prefrontal cortex, a region of high-level processing located behind the forehead; neural signals that reach this area were thought to emerge from unconscious obscurity into our awareness. Recent research, however, supports the idea that consciousness is a conversation rather than a revelation, with no single brain structure leading the dialogue.

Matt is a history teacher.

See how a rat’s mothering style can be passed down to her pups--and to their pups and so on--by altering the mix of chemical groups, or epigenetic marks, on genes in the brain. This animation is based on research led by Michael Meaney of McGill University

On April 27, 1817, Jane Austen sat down and wrote her will, leaving almost all of her assets--valued at less than 800 pounds sterling--to her sister Cassandra. In May, the sisters moved to Winchester, England, so the bedridden Jane would be near her doctor. On July 18, only a few days after dictating 24 lines of comic verse to Cassandra, Jane died.

[More]

In 1984 the Hatch-Waxman Act made it cheaper and easier to put generic versions of a drug on the market. As a result of the expedited approval process, generics now make up more than 60 percent of prescription drugs sold in the U.S. and have saved the health care system $734 billion between 1999 and 2008 alone

Natural climate variability is extremely unlikely to have contributed more than about one-quarter of the temperature rise observed in the past 60 years, reports a pair of Swiss climate modelers in a paper published online December 4. Most of the observed warming--at least 74 percent--is almost certainly due to human activity, they write in Nature Geoscience .

As delegates gather in South Africa to determine what the world's nations should do about climate change, one might wonder how we're doing?

Would