Have you ever experienced a phantom phone call or text? You’re convinced that you felt your phone vibrate in your pocket, or that you heard your ring tone. But when you check your phone, no one actually tried to get in touch with you.

You then might plausibly wonder: “Is my...

Recall that last time you had something “go down the wrong pipe”? You spent the next several minutes coughing, choking and feeling like something bad was in your throat.

It may seem strange to say this, but count...

When Marathon Pharmaceuticals announced in February it would market a drug for treating Duchenne muscular dystrophy for US$89,000 a year, the negative reaction was so intense that the company immediately suspended the rollout. (On Thursday, March 16, Marathon announced it was...

The discussion about how law enforcement or government intelligence agencies might rapidly decode information someone else wants to keep secret is – or should be – shifting. One commonly proposed approach, introducing what is called a...

The electric grid is an amazing integrated system of machines spanning an entire continent. The National Academy of Engineering has called it one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century.

But it is...

President Donald Trump just released a budget plan intended to fulfill a promise to rebuild the military with “one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.”

Specifically, Trump wants to boost “base” military spending by US$52.3 billion to $574 billion, an increase of 10 percent over fiscal...

The Dutch elections on March 15 have received a lot of attention in the international media.

The reason for the attention is clear: A Trump lookalike populist, Geert Wilders, was rumored to win big as part of a Western populist movement that some call the “Patriotic Spring.”

His rise has the liberal West confused and concerned, because...

On March 16, political leaders from the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, along with a number of Irish-American politicians, will attend a gala St. Patrick’s Day event at the White House.

Though the White House celebration originated in the Truman era, it took on...

North Korea’s missile launches last week are an early warning that the Trump administration’s Asia strategy could end up triggering the world’s next major war.

Spurred by the launches, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is touring Japan, South Korea and China this week. But Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile activities are not...

Pet food is an industry worth nearly US$25 billion in the United States. Owners make decisions about what to feed their pets based on marketing, personal beliefs and pet preference. And as with human nutrition, it can be hard to sort out truth from fads and marketing from science.

Current...