Guest Thinkers — December 21, 2010

Video from Yemen Confrence

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

A couple of weeks ago, I was part of a panel on Yemen hosted by the National Council on US-Arab Relations.

The video for that event is now on-line and available.

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

An illustration of Galileo Galilei with a historical text and a lunar sketch alongside.

13.8

Why seeing Galileo’s original experiments left me speechless

“I was stunned. Here in front of me was the original apparatus through which a new vision of the world was slowly and painfully brought to light.”

Global geoid map with colorful variations representing differences in Earth's gravity field. The scale ranges from -100 (low) to 100 (high). Europe's position is central.

Starts With A Bang

Scalar fields: the secret sauce of theoretical physics

Scalars, vectors, and tensors come up all the time in physics. They’re more than mathematical structures. They help describe the Universe.

Collage of geopolitical symbols, featuring a close-up of a man's bald head, China's flag, a globe highlighting Taiwan, and circuit patterns.

The Present

Why the USSR and China fell behind the US in the Chip Cold War

Both nations made missteps, but China still has a chance to make up lost ground.

Person examining a petri dish with tweezers, holding small colored objects, against a dark background.

Health

Are microplastics really destroying our health?

They’re in our brains, hearts, and blood — but what are they doing to us?

A wasp illustration in blue on grid paper is overlaid on a close-up image of effervescent bubbles in a golden alcoholic liquid.

Health

The first known animal that’s “immune” to alcohol intoxication

Could studying the Oriental hornet lead to a treatment for people with alcohol use disorder?

Up Next

Guest Thinkers

New Anwar al-Awlaki Interview (Updated)

Abdillah Haydar al-Shay’a has published the text of his interview from a few weeks back with Anwar al-Awlaki on al-Jazeera.Update: It is difficult to square al-Awlaki’s description of this e-mail […]