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

Workers at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant fighting to keep additional radioactive iodine, cesium, strontium and other harmful elements from being released into the environment are monitored daily for exposure to radiation. The same is true of the police and firefighters scouring the area within 10 kilometers of the plant for missing people. [More]

A major dark matter experiment has taken a swipe with its technological net in the hopes of catching some of the elusive particles that make up the universe's missing mass, and once again that net has come up empty. But in swiping and missing, the Xenon100 experiment has closed in a bit tighter on where dark matter--the invisible stuff theorized to outweigh the ordinary matter in the universe by a factor of five--might be hiding. [More]

Following the motions of a specific molecule inside a cell is no easy task In "Too Hard For Science?" I interview scientists about ideas they would love to explore that they don't think could be investigated. For instance, they might involve machines beyond the realm of possibility, such as particle accelerators as big as the sun, or they might be completely unethical, such as lethal experiments involving people.

Do animals give much thought to voluntary behavior? Before you or I reach for a cup of coffee, we make a conscious--even if barely so--decision to do it

Be kind to your bicycle, for you may need it more than it needs you. [More]

By Joanna Marchant of Nature magazine Female athletes may not be eligible to compete as women if they have natural testosterone levels in the male range. [More]

Earthworms laying on sidewalks or streets after a heavy spring rain has become commonplace, but why do they do this ... and could they be a travel hazard? Researchers hypothesize several reasons why heavy rain storms bring crawlers out of their soil homes

The fiscal 2011 budget compromise crafted by the White House and congressional leaders would delay a key federal climate and weather satellite program, making a lengthy gap in critical environmental data a near certainty. Cuts contained in the 2011 budget plan would push back the launch of the first Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) orbiter by at least 18 months past the current 2016 target, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco said yesterday.

For someone who died at the age of 32, the largely self-taught Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan left behind an impressive legacy. Number theorists have now finally managed to make sense of one of his more enigmatic statements, written just one year before his death in 1920.

By Daniel Cressey of Nature magazine Ranching cod off the coast of Iceland is far more financially sensible than conventional fishing methods or keeping the fish in cages, according to a new analysis. Fish ranching -- where the animals are free to roam but trained to return to a certain point so they can be caught -- could one day become a significant part of global fisheries, fitting between traditional catching and aquaculture, says Bj

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DETROIT (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's goal of having 1 million plug-in vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015 is on its way to being met, a Department of Energy official said on Wednesday. "It's looking good," said Assistant Energy Secretary David Sandalow when asked by reporters on the chances of meeting the goal set by Obama.

Dear EarthTalk : Why don’t cleaning products have to list their ingredients? Are these products tested for what they might do to your health? --Patricia Greenville, Bethel, Conn.

Last week, the science community was set a-buzz with a new study that showcased the unique relationship between salamanders and algae.

By a strange coincidence, I was called to jury duty for my very first time shortly after I started as director of a new MacArthur Foundation project exploring the issues that neuro