In early 2009, I came across a new trend on the social web that immediately resonated with me. Local communities used a new platform called Meetup (www.meetup.com) to organize offline events . . .
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Professor of physics at Columbia University, Brian Greene explains how the idea of multiple universes, or a singular “multiverse”, supports other theories of how our universe came to be.
David Brooks has a very thoughtful column on the fact that a lot of soaring health care costs have to do using all means available to keep very sick people […]
On May 26, Congress approved a four-year extension of major surveillance powers in the PATRIOT Act by wide margins in both the House and the Senate. President Obama, who was […]
They both experiment with language, recombining words and phrases in novel ways. Steven Pinker explains how his studies in childhood linguistics try to shed light on linguistic creativity in general.
The journal Nature ran a lead editorial today on the Climate Shift report: In just over six months’ time, officials from the world’s nations will meet under the auspices of […]
Conventional chemotherapy is like trying to turn off the lights in your kitchen by nuking your house. Personalized medicine will try to turn off the lights by flipping a switch.
A few days ago a friend of mine showed up carrying a city map of Amsterdam in the form of one of the simplest and smartest product redesigns I’ve seen. […]
A group of astrophysicists believe they have discovered the first potentially habitable exoplanet, named Gliese 581d. And there could be billions more just like it.
One of the things that I find most frustrating is reading articles or comments on AQAP by people who have never bothered to actually read what the organization itself puts […]
A cutting-edge experiment hunting for antimatter galaxies and signs of dark matter that was very nearly cancelled is finally poised to voyage into orbit aboard the next-to-last space shuttle mission.
My brother Erik Nisbet, a professor at The Ohio State University, has a study out that casts important new light on how Americans reacted to the news of the death […]
The fabled planetary alignment predicted to occur in 2012 is actually happening right now. Is this a sign of the Apocalypse, or just eye candy for stargazers?
A laser fired from a US warship off the California coast has ignited a nearby boat. This is the first time that the high-energy laser (HEL) has been fired from […]
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As a result of the economic downturn and the cancellation of the Constellation program, it’s now Shuttle Endeavor’s turn to take it’s last voyage into space. After a postponement of […]
Using data from the Large Hadron Collider experiment, a team of scientists has observed new behaviour of an exotic “B meson” particle that should shed light on a new physics.
Patricia Churchland, a philosopher at the University of California San Diego, says understanding morality means understanding its roots in the brain, i.e. our “circuitry for caring”.
New forms of writing will bring, as they always have, new ideas and new elements of creative genius.
From neon-lit “La-La Land” to dark, gritty L.A. Confidential and L.A. Noire, the city of angels—Los Angeles—has occupied a place in the public’s imagination in many forms. In Julius Shulman […]
“It never phased him that we’d call out different tunes from the stage and change the set around endlessly to stop from being bored,” Radiohead front man Thom Yorke says […]
Reprogrammed stem cells from schizophrenia patients have helped researchers determine that fewer connections are made between the neurons of a schizophrenic compared to those of healthy individuals.
Just a few weeks’ worth of light meditation can change the structure of your brain, seemingly for the better. Thirty minutes a day can actually increase people’s capacity for learning.
A theory that disputed the existence of dark matter—that mysterious energy causing the universe to expand at an increasing rate—has been disproved by evidence from the Hubble telescope.
The Earth has a long shelf life, but it is, alas, temporary. Before the Sun explodes in 5 billion years, there are a number of extraterrestrial threats to our planet, from rogue black holes to magnetars.
For most of us, eight hours of sleep is excellent and six hours is no good, but what about if we split the difference? What is the threshold below which cognitive function begins to flag?
It was about 95 degrees as we strolled into the Ames Middle School band concert Tuesday night. Although the outside air was stifling, the air conditioning inside was blissfully cool. […]
New evidence of how antidepressant drugs help to boost brain cell formation could lead to better treatments for depression, a disease which inhibits the production of neurons in the hippocampus.
This week, the USDA unveiled a new icon for healthy eating, MyPlate, a successor to the Food Pyramid and MyPyramid. There’s a lot to like about the new visual. The […]
A change in scale forces us to take note. Objects that we would never notice acquire significance, become worthy of examination and attention. In other words, they force mindfulness.
Georges Braque once said that he and Pablo Picasso were “roped together like mountain climbers” during the formative years of Cubism—1910 through 1912. Picasso and Braque scaled the mountain of […]