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

In Silicon Valley the Campbell Union School District 's sprinklers used to dutifully water the soccer fields and gardens at 12 campuses even during spring showers. Temporarily shutting off each of the 45 irrigation control boxes, by hand, wasn't worth the custodians' time.

"The orbiter is a completely different vehicle than anything that has ever flown in space." It was a work platform, a spacewalk platform, a construction site with a robotic arm, a laboratory, a people mover. It was a complex vehicle operating at the edge of its performance, with very little margin for error," John Shannon, program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston told Air & Space magazine in March.

TOKYO, July 4 (Reuters Life!) - Ceremonies to celebratedivorces have gained momentum in Japan after the massive March [More]

Can one appreciate the deep beauty of science, without mastering calculus, quantum mechanics or molecular genetics? I reckon the answer is yes, but I know at least one Nobel laureate disagrees with me. Sir Harry Kroto made the following comparison during a tense press conference on Wednesday: "Try to explain the culture and the depth of Shakespeare to someone who does not speak the English language

By Nicola Jones of Nature Magazine The world's insatiable demand for the rare-earth elements needed to make almost all technological gadgets could one day be partially met by sea-floor mining, hints an assessment of the Pacific Ocean's resources. [More]

What can be done about global health? It's the question on everyone's minds following Peter Agre's moving talk on malaria 'without borders' earlier in the week and Christian De Duve handing the baton of all the world's challenges to the young researchers in

Dear EarthTalk : What are the major issues with protecting migratory birds that groups like the Nature Conservancy are working on?

What happens in the brain when we experience a panic attack? --Davide Razzoli, Italy [More]

Dear EarthTalk : Isn’t spray sunscreen a health and environmental nightmare when it seems that more of the sunscreen ends up going up my nose than on the kid at the beach next to me? --Lillian Robertson, Methuen, Mass. Spray cans of sunscreen may no longer contain chlorofluorocarbons (also known as CFCs, which were phased out in the 1990s for causing holes in the stratospheric ozone layer), but many contain other chemicals that are not good for our health or the environment.

Take a hot bath, you’ll fee better. Not only does warm water soothe us, it can combat loneliness. According to research published in the journal Emotion .

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Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from a chapter in the book Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good by David Linden.

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