Ahhhh, Valentine's Day. Bad food, shoddy restaurant service - and you have no choice about it. The Soviet Union had toilet paper lines but they didn't force Valentine's Day on its people. Really, anyone who is unsure what mandates accomplish only needs to look at ethanol for a modern comparison of why things suffer when you force a solution on people.

But all is not lost. There's science in love, you know, and that means there's science in Valentine's Day. Science on Valentine's Day is like cold fusion instead of ethanol. Completely wonderful. And we have it all right here.

We're creating a page just for Darwin Day posts and links so if you have written something, leave a comment or download the button and we'll include a paragraph and a link.

If you've written it here, it's linked automatically. Happy writing!

Also, just in time for Valentine's Day, Garth Sundem has an article in the BBC News on making the right decisions and will demonstrate his equations in Horizon on BBC Two at 2100GMT on Tuesday 12 February.

If you need some science for your Christmas tree, here are a few articles. There are more but how much Christmas science can you read in one day?

The Great Debate: Real vs. Artificial Christmas Trees - a good reason to go organic in your choice of trees.

Need A Christmas Gift For That Special Left-Leaning Chick? Try Ethical Underwear - because you'll believe anything.

The Science Of Eco-Friendly Christmas Wrapping - mathematically terrific Christmas wrapping.

A Quantum Mechanics Explanation For Santa Claus - the mystery of Santa physics solved; in rhyming verse, no less.

A Space Station Christmas - Send Them A Greeting! - astronauts can probably see Santa from space but he isn't flying up there with presents.

Vampires, Mummies, Ghosts, Zombies - we have it all today. Not all of these articles are exactly new(s), some of them are even old, but they're all science.

So if you're a Goth chick, sorry about that whole 'vampires don't exist' thing and if you're trick or treating, make sure to wear clothes that glow.

If you can't get enough of the news articles on the main page today, you can also read about Vampire Squid and Vampire bats here and why one scientist says we need witchcraft in our lives.

If you can't be bothered to stay here for your Halloween reading, the author who writes Cocktail Party Physics wrote a whole book on the physics of the Buffy Universe. None of us read it but it's probably good, because it's about Buffy ( Faith - editor ).

If you know of other sites with Halloween science we should mention, don't hesitate to speak up. Or you could all continue to read and never comment, as usual.

'Social science' is not like the social sciences - economics, psychology, etc. - rather it's a mix of science and 'social news.' We're in the social news business but a niche part of it. We stick to science yet we're social news because a great part of the content is decided by you: you write it, you read it and your interest in specific articles is what decides the content on the main page. The more people that like an article and comment on it, the higher up it appears on our site.

Web 2.0, Science 2.0, whatever we call it, it's catching on. From the beginning of our private beta in February until now we have gone from no readers to hundreds of thousands per month.

Because of that success, we occasionally get asked to form partnerships with other groups and if the quality is up to our high standards and it would be good for the community, we're happy to do it. So in that vein I would like to announce the creation of the 'Sites We Like' section. If you look on the right sidebar, you'll see a block headline reading that and below it is the first 'site we like.'

It's called DNA Tube and, as you probably guessed by the name, they are like YouTube, except only for biology. YouTube is certainly popular but if you want to reach a focused audience with video content, DNATube is the way to go. As nominations come in for more 'sites you think we would like', we'll rotate more through there and give everyone a chance to shine.

I wrote about this briefly in our nifty new 'quick blog' feature but I thought it merited more consideration so I wrote down some thoughts and you can tell me if I'm off base.

David Houle, media executive responsible for branding MTV, VH1 and CNN Headline News, has joined Science 2.0 start-up ScientificBlogging.com as a strategic advisor to handle marketing and corporate communications.

We are currently in private beta.

You can create an account and start writing or read the FAQ to get an idea what we're all about.

If you want to get started and are curious about the interface and writing articles, take a look at our Overview page. It explains everything about getting around, creating an account and submitting articles.

Every morning Dennis Colson, a surveyor at New York City's Department of Design and Construction, begins his work day by placing his hand on a scanner to log his time and attendance at the office.

The use of hand geometry and other biometric data, like facial and iris recognition, is not new -- the University of Georgia pioneered the use of hand geometry when it installed scanners in its student dining hall in 1974.

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