
DIY Alchemy: How to “Transmute” Copper into Brass [Excerpt]
In this at-home experiment re-create some of the processes ancient alchemists used to seemingly transform one element into another

DIY Alchemy: How to “Transmute” Copper into Brass [Excerpt]
In this at-home experiment re-create some of the processes ancient alchemists used to seemingly transform one element into another

Urban Science Adventures: 100+ Things to Do Outside
It’s summer. The kids are out of school. You want to keep them engaged and active. Most parents also want to keep them on track academically, but not necessarily with a strong hand approach to learning.


The Top 5 Paleoart Books You Should Own
Protoceratops © by John Conway, from All Yesterdays As someone fascinated by prehistoric life during my entire existence, my love for paleoart is experiencing something of a renaissance: I have children now.

An Introduction to Open Peer Review
Last post we talked about traditional peer review, which is at least single-blinded. This time we will focus on Open Peer Review (OPR). The narrowest way to describe OPR is as a process in which the names of the authors and reviewers are known to one another.

ScienceArt Exhibits Heat Up This Summer
Take a break from the heat this summer to step into some cool galleries exhibiting scienceart. If the exhibits keep pouring in at this rate, I’ll have to split up this post by region.

Philosophy Begins Where Physics Ends, and Vice Versa
Physicist Sean Carroll has some words of wisdom for physicists who might have less than complimentary things to say about philosophy. The most recent altercation between a physicist and philosophy came from Neil deGrasse Tyson who casually disparaged philosophy in a Q&A session, saying that it can be a time sink and it doesn’t actually [...]

Fact or Fiction?: Carrots Improve Your Vision
Can scarfing carrots really help you see better in the dark?

2, 4, 6, 8, What Does Not Associate?
Last month, I wrote about group theory via monkeys, and it got me thinking about the associative property. A mathematical group consists of a collection of stuff: integers, or rational numbers, or even something more abstract; and an operation that combines any two elements of your stuff into another element of stuff.

Health Bloggers Offer More Advice Than Criticism
My PhD mostly dealt with research blogs from ResearchBlogging.org (RB) an aggregator of blog posts covering peer-reviewed research. In this article, we (Prof.

Natural History is Dying, and We Are All the Losers

Harmonies in Your Head: Make Amazing Sounds Only You Can Hear
Learn how sound travels by making secret sounds with a friend

Monday Music Video: An Epic Rap Battle Between Newton and Nye!
Today on YouTube we see a showdown between two science greats, with an additional big scicomm name included for good measure! I’ve written about Epic Rap Battles of History previously about the immensely entertaining Einstein vs.