One of my favorite email digests I receive every day is from ProMEDmail, the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases. It's an endless source of story ideas, from chikungunya to bipartisan bacteria to lab accidents. (Not to mention ... Click to continue

Readers who have been following my coverage of attempts to save the endangered pygmy rabbit may remember Onyx, a male rabbit I accompanied in April as his keepers moved him into temporary quarters to see how he would do in a ''prerelease setting.'' Onyx, who is 75% Columbia Basin rabbit and 25% Idaho rabbit -- the Columbia rabbits are officially endangered, and there has... Click to continue

Every now and then, I get an Email that makes me wonder whether people are idiots. OK, more than every now and then. Today, it was a job posting from a science writers' association that caught my eye. ''I am searching for a psychiatrist or psychologist, an expert in bipolar disorder, to write (or work with a writer to write) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Bipolar Disorder.''

Hmm, I thought. I earned an MD and then finished an internship in psychiatry. I'm a writer. If I had the time and the... Click to continue

In May, Bill Sharfman wrote about a London exhibit of works by John White, a 16th-century painter and traveler. They are of what might be considered well-known items: A pineapple, a plantain, and a Portuguese Man O' War. As Sharfman pointed out, however, "when White painted these images in 1585, they represented England's first glimpse of the flora and fauna of a mysterious body of land known as the Americas."

That exhibit has now made... Click to continue

Earlier this month, the US Fish and Wildlife Service denied protection under the Endangered Species Act to the giant Palouse earthworm. I can't describe the Driloleirus americanus any better than "worm defender" Steve Paulson did in the High Country News last year: ''What kid wouldn't want to play with a 3-foot-long,... Click to continue

Last month, a judge ruled that the US Fish and Wildlife Service had to revisit a 2004 decision denying pygmy rabbits outside of the Columbia River basin protection under the Endangered Species Act. I wrote about efforts to save the Columbia basin rabbits in our June issue; such rabbits have been listed as endangered since 2003.

The ruling was in response to a... Click to continue

In a statement issued tonight, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Board of Trustees said that they had "decided to suspend the administrative responsibilities of Chancellor James D. Watson, Ph.D., pending further deliberation by the Board." This follows their harsh response to his comments in the Sunday Times that he believed people of African descent are less intelligent, as Alison McCook... Click to continue

New York Democratic senator and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton told a Carnegie Institution audience on Thursday that a fictional TV show like CSI would inspire more students to pursue science, according to the Washington Post. "Make up a character," she said.

The comments were part of a speech in which Clinton promised to end the Bush administration's ''war on science,'' which we covered... Click to continue