The Average Human Vagina (and Vulva too!)

I have a piece up over at Double X Science on vagina and vulva diversity. Go on, take a look. You might learn something.

“Do you secretly suspect that your vagina is above average? It may…

The hidden costs of kids

You’ve seen them – the articles that try to put a dollar price on your kids. Fifty dollars a month for diapers, a hundred dollars a month in extra food, clothes, toys, college… Add all these up, the articles…

Why you should care that a circle’s area is pi*r*squared

A few months back a friend of mine, a mother and a teacher, posted to Facebook with a question:

“My daughter is doing her math homework and wants to know when she will ever need to know…

Elephant “four wheel drive” locomotion

Elephant legs likely function differently than other four-legged mammals during movement, according to a study. John Hutchinson and colleagues analyzed the gaits of six Asian elephants as the animals walked or ran over specially designed platforms while high-speed infrared video…

Guest post: Kids need fewer facts, more crap detection

Jeanne Garbarino over at The Mother Geek has graciously allowed me a guest post on her blog. The post is more about parenting than science, but since I advocate for parenting that will lead to scientific…

Like the back of your hand

People’s mental representations of their own bodies may not reflect reality, according to a study. Matthew Longo and Patrick Haggard asked human subjects to place their left hands palm-down under a board, and to judge the location of…

Beanbag-like robotic hand may simplify gripping

When researchers need a robot to perform gripping tasks, they generally rely on the human-like, multifingered hand. But this approach is computationally complex, requiring controllable joints, force sensors, and visual feedback systems. To design a simpler universal gripper, Eric…

Quantum nanotechnology may aid drug discovery

Sensors made of tiny diamonds may allow researchers to more closely observe cellular processes, potentially leading to more effective drugs in the future. Nano-diamonds become weakly magnetic when a single atom is replaced with nitrogen to form a nitrogen vacancy…

Dinosaurs cannot climb in your window

A letter to my son, age three:

No, dinosaurs cannot climb in your window.

Dinosaurs could run very fast. Some of them could fly. Many of them ate other animals. And many were very, very large. But one thing that…

fMRI outs the bluffing brain

Differences in brain activity may distinguish someone who is bluffing from someone who is acting honestly in a strategic game. Strategic deception, such as bluffing in a card game, requires complex understanding and manipulation of an individual’s social image in…