You know that old philosophical question; If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it fall? Here’s a variation; If a tree falls in the […]
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The greatest enemy we face – one that is indeed greater than any external threat – is the uncontrolled mind.
Human brains are the sources of ideas and ideas multiply all other resources and make your life better.
A new study finds that the area’s dry season is three weeks longer than it was 30 years ago, and predicts it could extend longer than what was forecast by last month’s intergovernmental climate change report.
Ecological footprint measurements, as currently constructed and presented, are so misleading as to preclude their use in any serious science or policy context.
Oceans and deserts are on opposite ends of the humidity scale, yet at some weird level, the extremes are interchangeable. Rolling desert dunes are reminiscent of ocean waves, and as […]
All maps tell lies, but this one does it better than most.
More than 20 people are dead and at least 90 are missing and presumed dead after a huge hillside of mud and clay and rock collapsed and slid down into […]
If we wanted to know how cold it is now and was in the distant past, how would we figure it out? “Science casts a long black shadow back over who […]
When things don’t add up, it’s a great sign that something amazing is right around the corner. Every Thursday, we take an older post from the Starts With A Bang archives […]
Fixated as we are on reason, humans tend to overlook other types of intelligence that animals possess in abundance.
This looks like a pretty standard map of a bit of Denmark. In fact, it is no such thing. For there isn’t really a town called Köbstad in Denmark, […]
Comes a time when you realize, you’re basically a straight-up Luddite, or at best the loyal opposition to the social media age, and you might as well embrace that and […]
Well, I realize I’ve been failing you by not sharing my views on the top films. My remedial effort will begin with three I saw in the last couple of […]
Positing Jesus Christ as a yogi has become popular over the last two decades. For some, the symbolism is irresistible: loving your neighbors, turning a cheek and other maxims line […]
Complexity theory is about adaptive systems that teeter on the edge of chaos.
A team of researchers is working on 3D-printing different organ cells, connecting them with a tiny circulatory system, and putting the whole thing on a two-inch chip, creating a “test subject” that’s steps up from animals or single-organ cell groups.
Driving through Yosemite a few years ago, we came upon a blackened patch of the park still smelling burnt. By the look of this map, it must have been the […]
William McDonough’s most profound concept is “Harvest of Value,” the basic notion that everything is a resource for something else. Simply put, waste equals food – the waste of one system becomes food for another.
When I was 15, my geography teacher almost ruined maps for me. He stubbornly avoided what fascinated me about cartography: the why and how of those borderlines that cut and […]
A special issue of Climatic Change, published this month, places focus on how traditional knowledge from native tribes can help scientists develop better adaptation strategies.
Leaders from 17 countries recently met in Sumatra to discuss how handheld GPS devices and mapping apps have helped their communities retain lands held for generations.
Researchers speculate that the forest, located just off the coast of Alabama, was buried under sediment for over 50,000 years before being revealed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Archie Archambault, that’s who! The philosophy graduate turned printer struck upon the concept of circular maps after moving to Portland. In Oregon’s biggest city, he felt something that must have […]
Markets can move mountains. But we must guide their power, using empirical behaviors. They should serve us, not we them.
As part of last year’s UN Rio+20 Summit, a group of financial institutions are looking into ways to put monetary value on natural resources and add incentives and penalties for their preservation or destruction.
The University of Newcastle plans to build a plant that will test a method of converting carbon emissions to inert “bricks” that could eventually be used in construction.
A new US Forest Service study shows that through removing fine particles in the air, urban forests save an average of one life every year per city. In New York City alone, eight lives are saved annually on average.
Maybe it’s truer and more useful to marvel at how we very nearly destroyed ourselves after discovering an unstable new energy source, then figured our way out of it.
We have to grow about 70 percent more food by 2050 to feed the population.