It's been a long year with a presidential election campaign that never seemed to end and a stock market that exploded with volatility, mostly on the down side.

So why are the powers that be adding more than the usual one day to this leap year, and why should you care?

Palin takes on basic science research as an example of government waste.

Join the Science Blog crew this Friday, October 24 at noon in Los Angeles to discuss Obama, McCain and the sciences, courtesy of Farmlab.

Read what's new today in the Wolfram Blog...

Russell Towle: 1949--2008
by Stephen Wolfram

Russian scientists developed a technique, which allows studying the way hurricanes move and finding out the amount of heat and moisture they carry to mid-latitudes and mid-high latitudes from tropics. The technique is based upon data of Earth’s satellite monitoring in the microwave range.

Meaning to life would be simple…

It is a chase, after creating this artifical universe in our universe. We have a chance to recreate the big bang our self’s and watch it in front of ours eyes.

Here in Champaign-Urbana, where Roger Ebert was raised, I took notice when Disney announced the end of its long relationship with Ebert & Roeper. Disney also announced the replacement critics, Lyons & Mankiewicz. Was there something intentional in that?

I tagged this with every category since I review books in all realms of science.

Though I plan to maintain my Science Shelf archive of book reviews, I will now also publish the reviews on Science Blog.

Adversaries the U.S. currently faces in Iraq rely on surprise and apparent randomness to compensate for their lack of organization, technology and firepower. If one could find some method to their madness, however, the asymmetric threat could be made significantly less serious, according to scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Now that the primaries have narrowed the number of viable major-party presidential candidates to three, ScienceDebate2008 promises to give each of them an opportunity to address an issue that is not strictly partisan: science and technology policy and what it means for the future of our nation and the world.