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

By George Wigmore of Nature magazine The sequencing of the Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) genome has revealed an immune system never seen before in jawed vertebrates. [More]

Dear EarthTalk : I heard of a practice called cyanide fishing, which is used mostly to collect aquarium specimens, but I understand it is also used to catch fish we eat. Isn’t this very unhealthy? --Phil Seymour, Albany, N.Y.

By Adrian Croft and Michael Holden LONDON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - From shopkeepers and middle-class [More]

Architect Gisue Hariri shares the items she can't live without. .caption {color:#666;font-size:12px;} .caption img {padding-bottom:2px;} .boxxy {display:inline-block;width:280px;border:none;margin:6px;vertical-align:top;} Photo by Ryan Pfluger To make architectural statements, Gisue Hariri employs digital technology and modern materials--but the Iranian-born architect, who runs the New York firm Hariri & Hariri with her sister Mojgan, looks to ancient sources for inspiration

Edmonton is Canada's chief oil city as well as the capital of Alberta, the province that hosts the bulk of the country's tar sands . Given the expense of converting this mix of dirt and heavy oils to more usable petroleum products, the province is not keen on alternative fuels.

Sunday's NASCAR race was bittersweet for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) .

In a geologic instant, the K-T extinction event about 65 million years ago left Earth's skies empty of pterosaurs , extirpated the mosasaurs and their ammonite prey from the seas, and, of course, denuded the land of non-avian dinosaurs. But what if, by some fluke of evolutionary history, this catastrophe never happened and the global summer of the dinosaurs was allowed to continue

There’s something about the idea of towing an iceberg from sea to sea that appeals to one’s inner mad scientist (or rather, mad engineer). [More]

Range fuels was a risky but tantalizing bet. The high-tech start-up, begun by former Apple executive Mitch Mandich, attracted millions of dollars in private money plus commitments for up to $156 million in grants and loans from the U.S. government.

Invasive species get a bad rap--but we humans are usually to blame for their spread. Take Japanese Stiltgrass, an invasive that arrived from Asia nearly 100 years ago as a packing material for porcelain. When it creeps into forests, it forms dense carpets that can choke out native tree seedlings

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BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and other instant communication platforms have helped to fuel riots and find missing persons this week in some major UK cities. [More]

Whole Foods is encountering a not entirely unforeseen headache during their first Ramadan marketing campaign: Pressure from anti-Muslim bloggers and internal dissent at their company. A pioneering Ramadan marketing campaign at Whole Foods has turned into a headache thanks to a handful of vocal anti-Muslim bloggers. The Houston Press leaked an internal company email claiming “it would be best” if Whole Foods did not observe Ramadan in-store, leading to widespread blowback from angry customers who supported the promotion.

Citizen scientists have an opportunity to contribute to biological research and learn more about the impact of invasive species [More]

By Eric Hand of Nature magazine Scalpel or guillotine? Those are the possible fates in store for US science funding after Congress and the White House reached a deal to cut federal spending and raise the nation's self-imposed debt limit before a 2 August deadline. The product of tumultuous negotiations, the deal largely spares science in the short term but puts a day of reckoning on the horizon: 2 January 2013.