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This weekend I saw Lincoln, which was a tremendous movie. Daniel Day-Lewis gives a compelling performance as President Abraham Lincoln during the closing days of the Civil War, when he […]

Dear Representative Boehner, Earlier this month, after President Obama was re-elected, you assured America in an interview that you are the “most reasonable, responsible person here in Washington.” No one […]

How much infrastructure and training do children need to use a laptop or a tablet? Do they need, for example, schools and teachers? Do they need to have seen computers […]

How does nearly six decades of work sound? We have all read the promising stories – ‘60 is the new 30’. According to some observers, 60 year olds may be just […]

I’m always impressed at the low-tech nature of today’s most brazen hacking attacks and abuses of identity. It’s inevitable that someone will lie to get at your information, then leverage […]

Without blaming the victims, Sargent finds a way to speak about the loss of vision on every level.

Entomophagy — the practice of eating insects — is already common in many parts of the world, but as scientists look to bugs as a serious alternate food source, one businessman sees himself as a pioneer.

Our anxiety about information overload is unwarranted, says James Gleick, even in the digital age. The internet will cause a readjustment in the way we think, but so did the […]

In honor of Earth Day, I wanted to share an article written by my former colleague Ross Robertson for EnlightenNext magazine called “A Brighter Shade of Green: Rebooting Environmentalism for the 21stCentury.” […]

Websites and Apps often have overly-complicated, legalese-filled Terms of Service that basically force you to click “I agree.” A new company wants to inform you about what exactly you’re agreeing to.

We’ve long been fascinated by the endless streams of data available in the world around us, and we especially love to try to make sense of them. 

Summary: A personable, good-humored example of the liberal-theist cherry-picking ethic. I recently wrote about the evangelical writer Rachel Held Evans and whether her book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, can […]

Social and mobile networking tools are helping to build financially-independent communities by facilitating informal trading markets. The services are a response to international banking crises. 

A new study says that sure, the carrot-on-a-stick method works to get citizens involved in their communities, but it doesn’t always sustain that involvement over time, requiring the use of other techniques.

In January Stanford President John Hennessy said in a Faculty Senate meeting that online education is a tsunami academia has to face. He added that “We want to get ahead […]

In order to make a cloud computing network more secure, DeTron is introducing its new QDK chip that cuts out any third party between sender and receiver.

Nathan Harden writes with his characteristic techno-confidence that most higher education will be online soon enough.  That means that most non-elite private colleges and many mediocre public institutions will soon […]

Over the last few years, researchers have scanned brains while they are at rest. They have found that the brain continues to function at a very high rate even when not occupied with tasks. 

Not content with publishing a fake newspaper, producing a fake news channel, and delivering the best satire on the Web to millions of genuine fans, the staff of The Onion […]

What do Jeremy Bentham’s nineteenth-century prison reforms have to do with David Petraeus and Google’s biannual “Transparency Report”?

A study that starts today uses ordinary citizens and vehicles equipped with Internet access to help researchers gather data that could drastically improve the driving experience.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg doesn’t give in very often. During his reign, Bloomberg has pushed for smoking bans in bars, restaurants and city parks. He has wrested control […]

The American Gut Project is an open-source, community effort to better understand the diversity of our microbiomes. 

The idea of getting eight hours sleep at night is a modern invention, one that is ironically no longer sustainable because of technological advances. But a better schedule is possible…

Over 20 years ago, I got in my car and drove a short distance from Baltimore to Washington, DC to meet the person I was in love with at the […]

Researchers at the University of California-Davis are embarking on a study designed to determine whether the type of bottle closure really makes a difference in wine quality.

Thanks to the hilarious and provocative Rob Reiner film,When Harry Met Sally, there is one debate that still gets even the most reticent people taking a stand.  And, that, of […]

The Russian government has revealed the existence of a field containing enough diamonds to turn the country into a much greater player in the gem industry.

Is a college education fundamentally an expensive insurance product that is purchased to avoid falling through the cracks in our society? If so, what can take its place?

From an evolutionary standpoint, which traits are most adaptive to a historical moment in which old certainties have vanished and anything is possible? According to Seely Brown, they include bravery, creativity, and a sense of play.