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

Long a staple of science fiction, self-driving vehicles that act as robot chauffeurs have been a cultural dream for decades.

Which way is north? Scientific American editor George Musser and his daughter Eliana help you find your way with a homemade water compass. For more fun activities to do with your kids visit scientificamerican.com/BringScienceHome

By Omar Valdimarsson REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - An eruption by Iceland's most active volcano was set to keep the island's main airport shut on Monday, while other European nations watched for any impact on their air routes from a towering plume of smoke and ash. [More]

Today was my first scientific dive. There is no activity that I’ve done that requires more group work and collaboration than laying a transect tape and taking a species count.

Powerful people often bend the rules. But here’s a twist: If someone breaks rules, are they then perceived as powerful?

By Omar Valdimarsson [More]

Between cds, mp3s, live streams, satellite radio, and even conventional am/fm radio, it’s hard to imagine being without near-instantaneous access to music. While it may seem like only recently that we’ve been able to listen to music via our phones, it turns out people were doing just that over 100 years ago

For rational people, dismissing the silliness around the supposed end of the world on May 21 is all too easy. In case you haven't heard, Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping has done some questionable math based on Biblical writing to determine that the faithful will be "raptured" tomorrow and that nonbelievers will be left behind to fester to death over the next few months

To press the "accelerator" on a Tesla Roadster 2.5 is to get an intimation of life as a race car driver. In perhaps the signature display of an electric car's appeal to gearheads, the Roadster instantly applies more than 300 amps of electric current to deliver 288 horsepower worth of acceleration--it's called instant torque, 273 pound-feet of it to be specific, and it's something that fossil fuel engines cannot provide due to the demands of combustion. That allows even an unprofessional driver to go from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour in seconds

This year's Atlantic hurricane season will be "above normal," with 12 to 18 storms, thanks in part to unusually warm ocean temperatures, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday.

Allen L. Edwards Psychology Lecture Series University of Washington [More]

On Saturday morning we fly to Guam, an island about one fifth the size of Rhode Island. Guam is part of the United States, although as a territory it lacks voting representation in Congress or a say in presidential elections. Location is primary in real estate speculation, but it is also central to military strategy and ecosystem management

SUBSIDIES AND HORMONES In “ How to Fix the Obesity Crisis ,” David H. Freedman proposed behavior modification as a solution, but it cannot be applied to 200 million overweight people. Freedman also seems to support subsidies for fruits and vegetables and other government-sponsored programs.

A week's warning could save an untold number of lives 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.

Key concepts Elements [More]