Go ahead, have that glass of Pinot Noir with dinner, ladies--it could help you prevent breast cancer. New research released today from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in L.A. and published in the Journal of Women's Health indicates that moderate consumption of red wine may reduce one of the risk factors for breast cancer, reports City News Service. more ›

Tonight is a great night to look up at the sky, because you're likely to catch a glimpse of the annual Quadrantids meteor shower. "This annual shower has one of the highest predicted hourly rates of all the major showers," explains Spacedex. more ›

So begins the countdown to Thanksgiving. We found a few events tonight that you can take advantage of before leaving town or the guests arrive. Tonight in LA: ALOUD welcomes Margaret Wertheim and Jim Carter on Alternative Science; a beagle fundraiser at Tony's Darts Away; a documentary panel discussion and seminar; and It's a School Night at Bardot. Read on for all the details. more ›

A trio of Santa Barbara organizations has teamed up to launch a balloon into near space this weekend, just for kicks. Santa Barbara's Natural History Museum, Amateur Radio Club and Hackerspace have partnered to launch a high-altitude weather balloon to 100,000 feet on Saturday. more ›

Once considered "science fiction", the collective fantasy of physicists to harness nuclear fusion -- the energy responsible for powering, well, the sun -- could be getting closer to earthly reality but will take "significant investment from the government at a time when spending on scientific research is under threat," according to an opinion piece in the New York Times. more ›

Remember when we had to do our crappy little science projects for school? Having our parents help us paint Styrofoam planet balls the night before it was due? This week, the Los Angeles Convention Center has been playing host to the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair with projects from more than 1,500 high school scientists from around the world. The young scientists are tackling issues such as earthquake detection, oil spill cleanup, wind technology, response to natural disaster technology, Alzheimer’s research and alternative chemotherapy treatments. Today only, the fair is open to the public until 9 pm. more ›

Retail therapy: It's the answer for almost any problem. Girlfriend broke up with you? Didn't get that promotion? Buy yourself something pretty. People like to shop, especially for high-status items, when they're feeling down. But parting with cash is also a painful process, so what gives? In a new paper in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, researchers Niro Sivanathan of the London Business School and Nathan Pettit of Cornell University describe how they think people resolve this conflict. more ›

Go Daddy founder and CEO Bob Parsons went on a little hunting trip recently. Parsons, who has been to Africa a number of times on similar hunting trips, was ostensibly working with a tribe in Zimbabwe who had been having trouble with elephants raiding their crops. In an interview with AOL, he said... more ›

Once again, the Natural History Museum will be opening up its Butterfly Pavilion, where patrons can "wing it" with hundreds of free-flying butterflies in a fun, interactive environment. This is the 13th year the seasonal attraction is operating at the Museum. more ›

Oh look, another New York transplant is heading out west - at least for a night or two. WNYC’s Radiolab, the popular public radio / podcast storytelling show with a scientific bent, will be at Royce Hall on Wednesday (sold out) and Thursday evening as part of a three-city tour, eventually culminating in Seattle at the end of the month. more ›

Biologists from an independent team from the University of Southern California took samples from the dead sardines that choked up Redondo Beach's King Harbor last week, and found they contained domoic acid, a "dangerous neurotoxin," according to KTLA. The USC biologists say that is " what caused the sardines to swim chaotically into the marina." more ›

Last night's total lunar eclipse was a rare event, and one that we missed out on witnessing here in Southern California thanks to our stormy skies. Sharing a date with the Winter Solstice for the first time since 1554, North America reportedly had some of the best views on earth...except for Californians under the cover of rain-choked skies. Here's what the total lunar eclipse looked like in places where it wasn't Rainpocalypse 2010. more ›

After plenty of interesting and amusing speculation, it could be time to file this fleeting mystery as solved: A new, straightforward theory might explain what that "missile" was that was spotted over Los Angeles Monday night. more ›

Here in sunny Southern California we don't get to take an up-close look at snowflakes very often--if at all--and hardly anyone in the world gets to look at them the way Caltech physics professor Ken Libbrecht has. more ›

A new report from the National Academies of Science has concluded that the West Coast, particularly Northern California through Washington, is not prepared for tsunami activity. One main cause of concern is the Cascadia subduction zone, which is not located near Los Angeles. more ›

Harvard University selected XVIVO to develop an animation that would take their cellular biology students on a journey through the microscopic world of a cell, illustrating mechanisms that allow a white blood cell to sense its surroundings and respond to an external stimulus. more ›

Do you live abut a wildland area? Then maybe you notice a trend, according to the San Bernardino Sun. A scientist in San Bernardino County, who has been tracking red diamond rattlesnakes in the Loma Linda Hills, has found a pattern: snakes are drawn to homes in the summer and away during the winter. "It might be for the water or because small mammals go there to get water, or both," said Aaron Corbit, who also theorized it could be about seeking a cooler location. If it's about chasing small critters, we'd ponder if the same would be true about coyotes. more ›

Imagine spending several weeks diving in the clear waters of Guam and Palau, making scientific measurements in forty feet of water on the reefs of Micronesia. Now imagine getting to do it with some of your closest friends. Now imagine getting college credit for it. more ›

Goldbug in Old Town Pasadena is the store for those of us who once caught spiders in jars and spent Saturday afternoons in the Museum of Natural History. Owner Stacey Coleman describes the small, family-owned store as "A contemporary cabinet of curiosity." more ›

California lawmakers are expected to vote this week on SB 624, which could demote serpentine from its lofty place as California's state rock. This is a spectacularly silly decision based on shoddy scientific evidence, and here's why. According to biologist David Lowry: more ›

The OC Register's Science Dude was hit with reports of readers spotting a "weird rainbow" in the skies above the region. He explains what people saw today is an " unusual atmospheric phenomenon" known as a parhelia or "sundog." more ›

Humans are, more or less, a cooperative species. But how is cooperation maintained when the potential rewards for being a free-rider are so much greater than the rewards for cooperating? New research by UCLA anthropologist Robert Boyd suggests that cooperation in large groups is maintained by punishment. more ›

"When you grow up, the more money you have, the happier you are." "The only kind of job I want when I grow up is one that gets me a lot of money." These are statements that the majority of 9-14-year-olds agree with, and its got parents and teachers concerned. Many social scientists have concluded that today's teens are "...the most brand-oriented, consumer-involved, and materialistic generation in history." more ›

You can't walk three steps down an aisle in any store without running into eco-friendly or "green" products. You probably have many of these products. Is your refrigerator or dishwasher Energy-star compliant? Do you have a paperless Kindle? Maybe bamboo guest towels in the bathroom? A Prius? more ›

What if I told you that just minutes from downtown Los Angeles, situated between USC and the LA Memorial Coliseum in historic Exposition Park, there exists a kelp forest, which is home to more than 1,500 fish and other marine animals? more ›

Did you remember to move your clocks forward last night? If you live in the United States (as well as many other countries), you did. How will that affect you and other people? more ›

Tomorrow, March 14, is World Pi Day. For those not in the know, pi (π) is the Greek letter that stands for the ratio of the circumference (distance around) of a circle to its diameter (width). Pi is an irrational number, which means that it can't be expressed as a fraction. That also means that its decimal representation never ends or repeats - it continues on, and on, and on. Forever. more ›

Children age 2 and younger spend two hours per day watching the tube. The average age at which infants begin watching programming designed for their age group (like Baby Einstein) is five months. Those who create and sell those DVDs often claim that they can encourage, or even jump-start, various aspects of cognitive and language development in children. A new study (read it in full) from the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, conducted by researchers at UC Riverside, on children 12- to 24-months old found that there was no evidence that children learned new words from the DVDs. More frightening, children who began watching those DVDs at an earlier age actually scored lower on a vocabulary test. more ›

Thirteen percent of UCLA undergrads join fraternities and sororities, and almost twenty-five percent of USC undergrads go Greek. According to a new study published in the journal Sex Roles, undergraduate women who join sororities are more likely to objectify themselves. In other words, they judge their own bodies from an outsider's perspective. They also display higher levels of disordered eating attitudes and behaviors, and show higher levels of body-related shame than those who don't participate in sorority recruitment. Don't be so quick to judge the Greeks, though: sorority membership may simply amplify pre-existing problems. more ›

What do the letters "A" and "F" mean to you? If you're like most people, you associate "A" with success and "F" with failure. Psychologists Keith Ciani and Ken Sheldon from the University of Missouri wondered if subtly exposing students to the letters "A" or "F" before a test affected their performance. more ›