There’s a perverse irony in the fact that negotiations about ethics reform in the corruption-stained state Capitol are conducted in secret. Time and again we’ve seen the governor, the Assembly speaker and the Senate majority leader . . . more

The Society for Science & The Public has awarded Intel Science Talent Search badges to five –– count ’em, five –– Kennedy High School students. Research Report … more

Each year the Society for Science & The Public awards Research Report Badges to students entering the Intel Science Talent Search whose reports demonstrate a high degree of research and are exceptionally well written. The reports, Bellmore-Merrick Central District science teachers say, could have been produced by graduate, rather than high school, science students. Two Calhoun High School seniors –– Nicole Fegan and Paulina Fein –– recently received word that they have been awarded Research Report Badges for their papers submitted to the Intel contest last fall. more

Katherine Ratner thought the measurement system used to categorize hurricanes –– called the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale –– was inadequate. So the Calhoun High School senior, 17, set out to create a new system, one that better reflected the size and strength of these monster storms. more

Senior Rachel Mashal, the class of 2016 salutatorian, put fruit flies on a restricted diet to determine whether lower food intake would ward off drug addiction — specifically caffeine addiction — while also extending life. (As it turned out, it did both.) Meanwhile, classmate Sarah Moussavi took on one of neuroscience’s most perplexing, and intriguing, questions: How certain are humans in their own decision-making? To reach a conclusion, she conducted a computer-controlled experiment at the NYU Center for Neural Science. more

Kennedy High School junior Claire Kelly spent three weeks last summer at the University of Chicago, delving deep into the human brain, examining the connection between impulsivity and drug addiction. Senior Rachel Mashal, the class of 2016 salutatorian, put fruit flies on a restricted diet to determine whether lower food intake would ward off drug addiction — specifically caffeine addiction — while also extending life. (As it turn out, it did both.) And senior Alexis Tillman hung out on lonely street corners (with either her mom or dad nearby) for weeks, filming homeless panhandlers to determine what, precisely, might persuade charitable passersby to give them loose change or even a dollar or two. more

When Bellmorite Czarissa Moreno was 17 months old, her parents, Cysette and Felix Moreno, noticed strange behavior from the toddler. Although Czarissa was teething, she seemed unusually irritable. more

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of all the Republican crazy talk. Summer’s long over. The Iowa Caucuses are Feb. 1. It’s time for the GOP to . . . more

The drug addicts’ brain scans that Dr. Stephen Dewey takes appear in psychedelic shades of red, yellow, green and blue, each indicating a level of brain activity — or inactivity. Red means excited. Blue is dormant. Dewey is the laboratory director for behavioral and molecular neuro-imaging at the North Shore-LIJ Feinstein Institute for Medical Research. In that capacity, he’s put hundreds of addicts’ brains to the test — the positron emission tomography test, that is — seeking to understand precisely what happens to the mind when a pot smoker lights up or a heroin junkie shoots up. And, he has found, it isn’t pretty. more

Breast cancer is big business in America today, and high season for the industry is October. Personally (and it is personal), I feel exploited by the “pinking” of the world around me . . . more