Taylor Lockwood never paid much attention to mushrooms. But when he moved from Los Angeles to the redwood-carpeted northern California community of Mendocino during the warm, wet winter of 1984, he found himself surrounded by them. Thus began an unabashedly obsessive love affair between the...

  Two sociologists and a mathematician recently conducted an experiment that provides an intriguing window into the presidential candidate selection that begins this week. Matthew Salganik, Duncan Watts and Peter Sheridan Dodds had a large group of people rate 48 songs. Based on these ratings, the...

  A federal judge in California is scheduled to release a decision this week that will outline what the Navy must do to protect whales and other marine mammals from the loud blasts of its sonar equipment.

  For centuries, humans have mythologized the bluefin tuna, an elite, warmblooded fish that can traverse the Atlantic basin in less than a month and a half and grow to weigh three-quarters of a ton. Romans put bluefin on their coins; Salvador Dali painted them.

  The Human Genome Project, completed in 2003, identified all 3 billion letters of genetic code that together control the development of a person. But human DNA is but a small portion of the DNA in every human. There are 10 times as many microbial cells in every person as human cells. And though they...

  Astronaut Daniel Tani, orbiting Earth aboard the international space station, learned Wednesday that his mother had died in a car crash, marking what NASA officials believe is the first time a crew member has lost a close family member while in flight.

  Responding to consumer queasiness about eating meat and drinking milk from cloned animals, and frustrated by continued delays in the government approval process, the nation's two largest cloning companies will today roll out a voluntary program aimed at helping shoppers avoid food from clones.