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

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have long known that butterfly wings produce their iridescent colors by bouncing light around and between tiny ridges in structures made of chitin. More recently they’ve discovered that the chitin material in their wings also expands when struck by infrared radiation which causes a change in its refraction index, converting it to visible light. Now, by adding a layer of carbon nanotubes to the wing material, the researchers have found they are able to increase the amount of heat absorbed.

Last year, I received an email I will never forget: one of the world’s tobacco giants wanted me to consult for them. It’s not that I’m a stranger to requests from the tobacco industry. In fact, ever since I published Buyology in 2008, my email address appears to be on every tobacco executive’s Rolodex

It wasn't Abraham Lincoln's strengths but the self-discipline with which he put those strengths toward the right purpose. There is much we can learn by studying Abraham Lincoln's journey from being just another politician to becoming America's greatest president. (Wikipedia provides a compilation of "Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States" which makes it clear that in the eyes of many experts, and the public, Lincoln has consistently held this status)

INTERPOL, the international policing agency, is opening a massive innovation center in Singapore in 2014.

By Kerri Smith of Nature magazine In 50 million to 200 million years' time, all of Earth's current continents will be pushed together into a single landmass around the North Pole. [More]

By Geoff Brumfiel of Nature magazine North Korea may have conducted two covert nuclear weapons tests in 2010, according to a fresh analysis of radioisotope data. The claim has drawn scepticism from some nuclear-weapons experts.

Determination to succeed was vital to Margaret Thatcher's drive, but left unchecked it led to her undoing. Meryl Streep personifies this leadership lesson in her latest movie.

The president is right that current rules make it very hard for growing businesses to raise money. Will Congress really cooperate to change them? Yesterday, President Obama presented the details behind one of his State of the Union initiatives: to make it easier for small businesses to raise money and to grow.

(PhysOrg.com) -- During the past few years, CERN physicist Dragan Hajdukovic has been investigating what he thinks may be a widely overlooked part of the cosmos: the quantum vacuum. He suggests that the quantum vacuum has a gravitational charge stemming from the gravitational repulsion of virtual particles and antiparticles. Previously, he has theoretically shown that this repulsive gravity can explain several observations, including effects usually attributed to dark matter.

(PhysOrg.com) -- During the past few years, CERN physicist Dragan Hajdukovic has been investigating what he thinks may be a widely overlooked part of the cosmos: the quantum vacuum. He suggests that the quantum vacuum has a gravitational charge stemming from the gravitational repulsion of virtual particles and antiparticles. Previously, he has theoretically shown that this repulsive gravity can explain several observations, including effects usually attributed to dark matter.

Bre Pettis's MakerBot has attracted millions in financing and is selling its 3-D printers as fast as it can. So how big can his business get?

By Jo Marchant of Nature magazine Prion diseases such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) are able to jump species much more easily than previously thought.

Despite major oil finds off Brazil's coast, new fields in North Dakota and ongoing increases in the conversion of tar sands to oil in Canada , fresh supplies of petroleum are only just enough to offset the production decline from older fields. At best, the world is now living off an oil plateau--roughly 75 million barrels of oil produced each and every day--since at least 2005, according to a new comment published in Nature on January 26. ( Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) That is a year earlier than estimated by the International Energy Agency--an energy cartel for oil consuming nations

Researchers working at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have used the world's most powerful X-ray laser to create and probe a two-million-degree piece of matter in a controlled way for the first time. This feat, reported today in Nature, takes scientists a significant step forward in understanding the most extreme matter found in the hearts of stars and giant planets, and could help experiments aimed at recreating the nuclear fusion process that powers the sun.

There's no good reason to care about EBITDA, right? Wrong. Your banker and investors will care--so should you.