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

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An iconic species of the American West, the whitebark pine, is at risk of extinction from climate change and disease, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said on Tuesday, but no immediate action is planned.

By Nic Fleming of Nature magazine The movement of cholesterol in and out of cells takes much longer than previously thought, according to new measurements of the phenomenon in artificial cell membranes. [More]

By Eric Hand of Nature magazine As the space shuttle glides through its final week, another arm of the US space program faces a bleak future. [More]

Despite common parlance, oil is not a singular substance but rather a toxic stew of many different hydrocarbons that comes out of the ground mixed with natural gas. The oil that spewed from BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico last year was no different--and now a precise measurement of its chemical composition has been published July 18 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

More than a quarter of American adults have what’s called poor health literacy. They're likely to have trouble interpreting important written health information --or have difficulties communicating well with doctors and nurses. But does that mean they're actually more likely to miss taking scheduled medications or get sick?

What will you find living in your backyard? [More]

Editor's note: In the August issue of Scientific American, cosmologist George Ellis describes why he's skeptical about the concept of parallel universes. Here, multiverse proponent multiverse proponents Alexander Vilenkin and Max Tegmark offer counterpoints, explaining why the multiverse would account for so many features of our universe--and how it might be tested.

HOUSTON -- NASA's last space shuttle ever to visit the International Space Station cast off from the orbiting lab early Tuesday (July 19) to begin one final trip back to Earth. Atlantis launched July 8 on the 135th and last voyage of NASA's 30-year space shuttle program

Continuing with the tradition from last three years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2011 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January 2011. [More]

By Yoko Kubota TOKYO, July 19 (Reuters) - Japan's government said on [More]

We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, to prevent our being swamped with incompetence.

Thanks to Skype, Apple FaceTime and at least a half dozen other mobile video apps, the old-fashioned phone call is becoming pass

The current issue of Nature has a great feature about how mathematical inventions and discoveries often find unexpected applications, sometimes decades after their first appearance.

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Many people go offline over the weekend, and are busy catching up at work on Monday.