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

As computers become progressively faster and more powerful, they’ve gained the impressive capacity to simulate increasingly realistic environments.

Dear EarthTalk : What will be the effect of all the flooding along the Mississippi River for organic farmers, given all the pollutants in the water? When they recover, can they still certify their products as organic? --Michael O’Loughlin, Tigard, Ore.

Imagine hanging out with some of the world’s kookiest critters in the jungle’s tallest trees, building a robot that does stand-up comedy, inventing a device that propels you into the air like Batman, or traveling back in a DNA time machine to study ancient animals! Meet the scientists who make it possible.

For thousands of years people on Palau have used sustainable methods of fishing and preservation. The virtually untouched, biodiverse reefs and pelagic marine animals are a testament to these practices.

A new form of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has been found in dairy cows and humans in the U.K.

We know that at the heart of at least two ocean basins--the North Pacific and the North Atlantic--tiny plastic fragments the size of confetti or smaller are accumulating on the sea surface by the tens of thousands, the remnants of discarded grocery bags, cups, bottles and other waste. Last year a group of researchers publishing in the journal Science reported a mystery: during a 22-year survey of plastic accumulation in the western North Atlantic, the scientists saw no increase in the amount of plastic, despite a surge in annual global plastic production from about 75 million to 245 million metric tons over the same period. Where was it going

The quadratic equation may have instilled horror in many of us. But for some five to seven percent of the population even basic math--like the concept of the numbers five and seven--causes anxiety. You may never have heard of the disorder called dyscalculia, yet it’s as common as dyslexia, according to research in the journal Science .

There’s a habit that’s had scientists puzzled: the practice of geophagy--eating dirt.

China's state-run Xinhua News Agency has struck back against Google following the Internet giant's claims earlier this week that recent hacker attempts to steal Gmail user passwords appeared to have originated from China.

Missed the illuminating talk on dark energy? Uncertain about certainty

Editor's Note: The following blog post first appeared May 17 on the World Science Festival's web site.

We spend a third of our lives asleep.

By Geoff Brumfiel of Nature magazine A team of physicists is claiming to have coaxed sparks from the vacuum of empty space. [More]

Stuff happens. The weather forecast says it’s sunny, but you just got drenched.

In X-Men: First Class , the latest film about the popular comic book superheroes, one of the mutant characters goes by the nickname Darwin because he has the power of “reactive evolution.” He instantly adapts to any threat: toss him in water and he sprouts gills; hit him with a club and his skin turns to armored plates. Biology mavens in the audience may object that this form of evolution is more or less the opposite of what Charles Darwin proposed with his theory of natural selection