And the unheralded astronomer who brought its secrets to light. “In a word, in the eyes of a giant, to whom our Suns were what our atoms are to us, the […]
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“Education isn’t about knowledge, it’s about privilege.Would we know about Hannah Arendt had she not studied under Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers? Let me be more specific, education is about the privilege […]
What does it mean when Big Data can make a prediction that someone has a high likelihood of committing a crime? Should the criminal justice system intervene?
We’re letting unnatural laws unduly influence us. A fuss about “simple economics” can remind us that markets aren’t like gravity, and their so-called laws are neither laws of nature nor […]
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 […]
It’s easier than you might think, and we’ve been doing it for over a century. “The doctors realized in retrospect that even though most of these dead had also suffered from […]
Custom-made from a dental scan and designed to fit over the teeth, the Blizzident claims to do the job of a regular toothbrush in only six seconds.
Alan Alda recently challenged scientists to explain this simple question to 11-year-olds in less than 300 words. Could you do it? “You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work […]
Learning facts and figures are going to be best done by technology feeding them to you the way you want to hear them, when you want to hear them.
Robert Pinsky: At the airport, everybody else was listening to the clatter of CNN in the background and announcements about other flights, and I was getting some work done.
THAT is a common joke among mainland Chinese who outnumber the Japanese roughly ten to one. It also mocks Japan’s geographical tininess. (It’s not a small country, bigger than Germany […]
Over recent years a new industry has exploded that sells educational interventions purportedly based on neuroscience to schools. In 2006 a paper published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience reported that teachers […]
Guest post by Kevin Flora(Cross post from kevinflora.com) Think as if there isn’t a box, not just “outside the box”. Embrace change and accept your responsibility as a professional within […]
Hamilton Nolan, a Gawker writer I greatly respect but who I’ve disagreed with before, has a new post up regarding using Tweets publicly. I here want to respond to one […]
The future of humanity depends on it. “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach […]
If stars, planets, and biological processes are so common in the Universe, then where is everyone? “If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens… Where Is Everybody?”–Stephen Webb As egocentric as […]
From 30,000 feet above sea level, why aren’t the stars visible from an airplane? “Don’t get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free […]
The U.S. does have one thing in its favor: Inertia. The fact that we have been #1 for so long means that we will continue to live off of past success for several years to come. But, we can’t live on fumes forever.
From how they’re born to how they live to the end of their life cycle, this story is common to them all. “Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies […]
How was Earth’s most well-known precious metal made? “Don’t gain the world and lose your soul;wisdom is better than silver or gold.” –Bob Marley Throughout all of recorded human history, there’s […]
How the Universe tells us its age, size, and properties, and leads us inescapably to the conclusion that it’s billions, not merely thousands, of years old. Today, we’re lucky enough to […]
The math and logic of teams sometimes (perhaps often) opposes maximizing self-benefit.
Dear Strange Maps, This really is the strangest, or perhaps most curious, map I’ve ever seen: Spam is almost as smart as chimpanzees these days. It gets harder and harder […]
Oxford researchers say we are only a few decades away from a chance at digital immortality.
It’s one of nature’s most amazing sights, but how does it work? “I love the sounds and the power of pounding water, whether it is the waves or a waterfall.” –Mike […]
Where the first atoms in the Universe — the progenitors of all the normal matter that makes up everything we know — came from. “I see a lot of new faces. But, you know the […]
Joan Rivers called a baby ugly; Frankie Boyle once commented on Twitter that an Olympic swimmer looked like an aquatic mammal, due to the size of her nose. Most of […]
Within some non-Western cultures, voice hearing is valued and it would not be seen as indicative of any illness at all.
On the 60th anniversary of its publication, Lord of the Flies continues to be a valuable literary and cultural reference point and, more surprisingly, an instructive manual about contemporary political life—and its liabilities.
Political and economic changes have a way of getting into people’s heads. Once-new tools come to feel as natural as the hands that pick them up; once-new rules, ingrained in […]