I know, I’m old, and even when I was young, I wasn’t cool, but I’ve never understood lip-piercing, nose-piercing, tongue-piercing, other-bodily-part-piercing–even ear-piercing is suspect, as far as I’m concerned. Why would you want to do that to yourself? Now comes a scientific reason to object, should my daughter one day (God forbid) seek to pierce …
Man bites dog, cat shoots owner
As the famous quote has it, when a dog bites a man, that’s not news. When a man bites a dog, that’s news. No doubt when a cat bites a man, that’s not news, either–but when a cat shoots its owner–well, that is undoubtedly news. The weapon in question was a 9mm handgun, and the …
News from the Battle of the Bug
Humans and insects have been fighting over whose turn it is to eat the plants (and, in the case of mosquitoes, over whose blood is it, anyway?) for a very long time–but recent research may be about to give us two-legs a leg up over the six-legs. More than 3,000 years ago, the Chinese used …
The New York genome project
Craig Benter is siphoning off some New York City air every day and amplifying the DNA of the fungi, bacteria and viruses it contains, in an effort to find out just what is in the air of a major city–a project that could aid efforts against bioterrorism, and will almost certainly turn up some fascinating …

