Penguins lost the ability of flight hundreds of thousands of years ago, but ancestors of these birds could fly.

Originally posted on Soapbox Science - a community guest blog from nature.comScientists who engage in policy-relevant research yearn to make our results, knowledge, and ideas useful to decision-makers.  More and more scientists are talking directly with stakeholders, policy makers and the public face-to-face and via the internet, both formally and informally.  At the same time, many of us are employed by universities, and our jobs are stabilized through a merit-based tenure system.  This can […]

Which element is even more dangerous than the most toxic substance known to man?This week's element is actinium, which has the chemical symbol Ac and the atomic number 89. Actinium gets its name from the Greek word for "beam" or "ray".This element is vanishingly rare in the wild -- "vanishingly rare" is a deliberately-chosen descriptor that you will be reading quite frequently in this weekly round-up now that we're well into the seventh and last period of the periodic table. Actinium is a soft, […]

As cute as this is, silicon and silicone are not the same thing. However, showing a submarine for Hafnium scores a bonus point (reactor control rods)

Journosplaining 101 (a commentary on Ed Yong’s A Guide for Scientists on Giving Comments to Journalists) Read this as part Q in the never-ending series of scientists v journalists. I’m a scientist, so I see where Chad’s coming from. But a comment on Ed’s article first. There’s a reason you should take some of the [...]