Sciences

It's Cold in April, So Global Warming Must Be B.S., Say Humans

It's freezing in New York--where the hell is global warming?— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 23, 2013 It's cold this morning. Not quite freezing like in New York, but it's 40 degrees. In North Texas. In late April. It's a little odd, a bit of a surprise. Less surprising: That hord ... More >>

University of Texas Scientists Plead with Lawmakers to Please Kill Intelligent Design Bill

State Representative Bill Zedler's legislative career can be summed up as a quixotic attempt to foist his puritanical worldview onto the state's 26 million residents. Backdoor abortion bans, stripper licensing, Sharia law bans, making life unnecessarily difficult for gay college kids. Whatever your ... More >>

Ty, the Tyrannosaurus Sold by Dallas-Based Heritage Auctions, Gets the New Yorker Treatment

The saga of Ty, the Tyrannosaurus bataar fossil smuggled out of Mongolia and into a May 2012 sale by Dallas-based Heritage Auctions, effectively came to a close last month when Eric Prokopi, the "commercial paleontologist" behind the sale, pleaded guilty to illegally smuggling the specimen into the ... More >>

Florida Man Who Sold a Tyrannosaurus Fossil Through Heritage Auctions Pleads to Smuggling the Dino from Mongolia

Back in May, Houston attorney Robert Painter got a panicked dispatch from the president of Mongolia: A 70 million-year-old Tyranosaurus bataar skeleton that had been illegally smuggled from the country was about to hit the auction block, and the sale must be stopped. Painter leaped into action. He ... More >>

National Weather Service: Expect A Warm, Dry Winter, North Texas

Last winter was a godsend. After surviving the driest year in Texas history, we got one of the wettest winters on record. Since April, though, North Texas has been racking up rain deficits, according to the National Weather Service's winter outlook. October was drier than usual, and November saw vi ... More >>

Fossil Dealer Fires Back in Custody Battle Over Dinosaur Skeleton

Two months ago, a judge in New York granted a request by the U.S. government issued a warrant for the arrest of one Tyrannosaurus bataar. The dinosaur's skeleton, which Dallas-based Heritage Auctions had attempted to sell the previous month, was suspected of being in the country illegally, having be ... More >>

Connection Between Quakes and Underground Frack-water Disposal Looks Solid

There's a reason State Farm wants to insure Johnson County homes against earthquakes. Injecting millions of barrels of fracking waste water loosens faults the way whiskey loosens tongues. Cliff Frohlich of the Jackson School of Geosciences deployed seismographs throughout a 43-mile grid in the Bar ... More >>

Roll Red Tide: Still No Good News for Oyster Lovers from the Coastlines of Texas

Steven Doyle​Red tide, the naturally occurring algae bloom that causes toxicity in shellfish, continues to plague the state's coastline -- keeping Texas oysters out of local restaurants and threatening the $18.5 million Texas oyster industry. The state closed the entire coast of Texas to oyst ... More >>

Local Paleontologists Find New Dinosaur Species, Name It After Ross Perot. No, Really.

Courtesy the Museum of Nature & ScienceRoss ain't no dinosaur. At least, he wasn't.​This just in from the Museum of Nature & Science: Paleontologists at the museum are set to introduce to the world a new species of the ceratopsid dinosaur Pachyrhinosaurus at the Society of Vertebrate Paleo ... More >>

A Decade-Long Drought? Yeah, Maybe So, State Climatologist Says.

It's all but official now. We've strung together the 12 driest months in Texas history. State climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon estimates we got 13.69 inches for the year. The average is 27. It's been hell on ranchers, as we reported in this week's cover story. And it may get worse. Texas A&M put o ... More >>

Say These Names Three Times Fast

If You've Ever Wanted to Own a Complete Dinosaur Skeleton, or Four, Now's Your Chance

Heritage expects the Allosaurus and Stegosaurus skeletons will go for upwards of $3 million. But that's for the pair. A bargain.​I've taken the almost-8-year-old who lives in my house to several of 'cross-the-street neighbor Heritage Auction Galleries' dinosaur auction previews, because, right, ki ... More >>

The Original King of Wrap

SMU Prof Among Those "Deeply Disturbed" by "Political Assaults" on Climate Scientists

​SMU sends word that David Meltzer, the university's anthropology chair, is among the 255 members of the National Academy Science not amused at all with those who've been trying to dismiss climate change as a ... what did D's Trey Garrison call it? Oh, right: "Man-Made Climate Change Hoax." To tha ... More >>

Get Your Hot Rocks Off: SMU Prof Has Found a Way to Get Texas Off the Grid

SMU's been tapped by the State Energy Conservation Office to study clean, renewable energy sources throughout the state of Texas -- and danged if Maria Richards, program coordinator for the SMU Geothermal Laboratory, doesn't think she's found one. Today, the university posted a preview of its assess ... More >>

Natural Selection Only a "Figure of Speech," Says State Education Board Chair

Don McLeroyDon McLeroy, a Republican dentist from Bryan, is the chair of the Texas State Board of Education. He's also a book critic: Over the weekend, an indie book publisher posted his recommendation of Robert Bowie Johnson Jr.'s new book Sowing Atheism: The National Academy Of Sciences' Sinister ... More >>

Spaceballs, or: You Can Stop Looking for Meteors. But a UNT Prof Is Giving Some Away.

They've stopped looking for pieces of the "fireball" down in West, where, apparently, it's plowin' season. And once the plows start turning up the fields, the samples, which already look like regular old rocks, are going to be difficult to spot. Furthermore, the landowners down there have gotten gre ... More >>

The Giving Tree: Dallas Urban Forest Chair Gets Bush Volunteer Award

Evolutianity

Do Not Curb Your Enthusiasm, as EPA Honors Laura Miller

French Lessons (From Mrs. Bill Gates)

Is the Man Behind the TXU Deal a Hero or a Villain? Depends.

Is That Gas or Indigestion at Exxon?

Brain Spat

It's Bloody Bone-in Hot Out There

Shooting Stars

Poor People Make Excellent Guinea Pigs

Spare Climate Change

All Apologies

Hey, man. Dave's coming.

Rock Stars

Fahrenheit 2050

Al Gore takes on the other imminent threat to America

Science!

Einstein's genius blinds us

Star Power

FWMSH shines bright

Global Warming Is Real

Scientist Tim Flannery tells us why

We Are Scientists

Tuesday, March 21, at the Granada Theatre

Delayed Pain

Plus: Viva la Alcaldesa!; Donkey Kong

This Week's Day-By-Day Picks

Best Quilter

Sue Benner

Alternative Education

The Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan could have chosen academia. Instead, he chose to rock.

Genetic Criminals

A DNA researcher tracks down the causes of hereditary illnesses

Best Local Ski Mountain

Taos Ski Valley

Shallow Impact

Why don't tourists flock to the meteor crater outside of Odessa? Because most don't know a bona fide Texas treasure from a hole in the ground.

Off the Killing Floor

Dallas-based Supreme Beef wins a major round in its court battle with the USDA

Monkey Business

William Dembski thought Baylor University would be the perfect place to investigate a scientific alternative to Darwinism. He didn't know he'd be crucified for his cause.

Good Vibrations

Disputed Reform Party candidate John Hagelin thinks he can change the world with the power of positive thinking. Does that make him nuts?

Buzz

SEEDless in DISD

Dino-might

Life and Death in the Big Bend

Mesozoic mess

The Disney formula goes disturbingly awry in the off-putting Dinosaur

The long trailer

The mega-hyped disaster flick Armageddon signals the death of storytelling

Footprints of Fantasy

Creation scientist Dr. Carl Baugh claims he's found evidence that will explode the 'myth' of evolution. But the biggest myth is Baugh himself.