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

Today I am checking on some recent work by sci-comm students at University of California – Santa Cruz: Donna Hesterman: Research Highlight: An Imperfect Storm: Imagine a world with no storms.

SHANGHAI -- For Jin Liang, a typical Chinese who watches his utility bills carefully, each scorching hot summer day posed a dilemma: Should he switch on his air conditioner, or keep it off to cool the impact on his wallet? But his dilemma faded away this year after Jin moved into a new apartment. It features magical materials that allow him to comfortably turn off the air conditioner and yet stop sweating

Frog legs are still an amazingly popular food item around the world, including here in the U.S. According to a new report, an average of 2,280 metric tons of frog legs are imported into this country each year--that's the equivalent of somewhere between 450 million and 1.1 billion frogs.

Several Scientific American staffers recently flew out to Mountain View, Calif.

When my first child was born, I was very happy, as many moms are, but also a little on edge. [More]

LONDON (Reuters) - People from northern parts of the world have evolved bigger brains and larger eyes to help them to cope with long, dark winters and dim skies, scientists said on Wednesday. Researchers from Oxford University studied the eye sockets and brain capacity of 55 human skulls from 12 different populations across the world and found that the further human populations live from the equator, the bigger their brains. [More]

Hospitals might not always be the happiest places on Earth. But some might get a little happier, with help from Disney. [More]

Antibiotics don’t work against viruses. But doctors sometimes give antibiotics to patients who have what turns out to be a viral infection. Which adds to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance

Just a quick summary of the day:

By Lori Grannis MISSOULA, Montana (Reuters) - Environmentalists went to federal court on Tuesday seeking to restore endangered species safeguards for some 1,200 gray wolves in Montana and Idaho removed from protection by an unprecedented act of Congress. [More]

By Lauren Keiper BOSTON (Reuters) - Rising sea waters may threaten U.S. coastal cities later this century, while the Midwest and East Coast are at high risk for intense storms, and the West could see compromised water supplies

By Christine Stebbins CHICAGO (Reuters) - Rich countries grabbing farmland in Africa to feed their growing populations can leave rural populations there without land or jobs and make the continent's hunger problem more severe, an environmental think tank said on Tuesday. [More]

By Jessica Dye NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal officials seized roughly a ton of ivory in one of the largest U.S. seizures on record and arrested the owner of an African art store accused of smuggling carved elephant tusks into the United States, authorities said on Tuesday

Enceladus, a small satellite of Saturn, has captivated planetary scientists for years with its watery polar geysers and ridgelike surface features known as "tiger stripes." Now it has a new layer of intrigue. The gas and ice escaping from Enceladus and shooting out from the moon's south pole in towering jets, which fill Saturn's diffuse E ring, also seem to rain down on Saturn itself, providing water vapor to the giant planet's upper atmosphere

By Chloe McIvor of Nature magazine Preschool children spontaneously invent experiments in their play, according to research published this month in Cognition. The findings suggest that basic scientific principles help very young brains to learn about the world. Psychologists have been drawing a comparison between cognitive development and science for years -- an idea referred to as 'the child as scientist'