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

Students, parents, teachers : the Google Science Fair ’s deadline is April 4. Scientific American is a media partner, and I am a judge.

Accent matters more than looks when it comes to identifying a person’s ethnicity, according to a study published in the November Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . [More]

If two men began a boisterous tug-of-war over the wine list at a posh restaurant, more than a few heads would turn. Yet two six-year-old kids quarreling over a pack of crayons at a diner would hardly seem unusual. It is normal for kindergartners to act out and for grown-ups to show restraint

Last week, Nature issued a new paper .

Across the East China Sea, west of Japan and its ongoing crisis, sits the growing Qinshan nuclear power plant , where four new pressurized-water reactors are under construction in addition to the five already operating on-site.

What could be cooler for an aspiring scientist or engineer than a hands-on project working with and learning about electronics and optics? How about one where each student ends up with his or her own digital camera. [More]

* Battle to control Fukushima plant seen far from over * Japan crisis helps tip Germany poll against Merkel [More]

How did life start on Earth? Science still has no definitive answer

Sex is a big deal. It can change how people see their partner. . Or themselves.

While there may be many interpretations of what a smut machine is or does, the one I’ll be talking about is the invention featured in the April 2, 1859 issue of Scientific American .

DALLAS--It can't happen here. Or can it?

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from the new book Demand Better! Revive Our Broken Health Care System (Second River Healthcare Press, March 2011) by Sanjaya Kumar, chief medical officer at Quantros, and David B. Nash, dean of the Jefferson School of Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University. In the following chapter they explore the striking dearth of data and persistent uncertainty that clinicians often face when having to make decisions

The nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power station in Japan that were crippled by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami are a lot like reactors in the U.S. They are a common, if not exactly modern, General Electric design that harnesses nuclear fission to boil water and drive steam turbines to generate electricity.

Scientific American was back at the FIRST New York City regional robotics competition this year.

The huge disaster in Japan has ruined parts of the nation's electrical system, notably the six Fukushima Daiichi reactors that remain shut down. As a result, the country's utilities can't generate enough power to meet demand, so they are using rolling blackouts to give some power to everyone for some portion of each day.