I was going to write about this yesterday, but for many hours I was convinced that it had to be an Onion article, or a social-anthropological experiment designed by an […]
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For the May/June issue of Canada’s Policy Options magazine, I contributed an article adapted from my Spring 2013 Shorenstein Center paper examining the career of environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben. With anticipation building over Obama’s […]
Why does the Purple Line in this alternate-universe railway map terminate in Quincy, Illinois?
Data is an abstraction of real life, and real life can be complicated, but if you gather enough context, you can at least put forth a solid effort to make sense of it.
The facts aren’t in, but here’s what we know: The internationally renowned athlete, Oscar Pistorius, was part of a violent shooting at his home, resulting in the death of his […]
I’m pretty certain that the New York Mets won the ’86 World Series because I refused to put my feet on the ground. Perched on the edge of my bed, […]
To wit, it is time to abolish the IRS.
In a closely-followed case, two high school football stars in a small Ohio town were found guilty yesterday of raping an unconscious, intoxicated young woman at a party. The victim […]
I had my first spiritual experience when I was 16 years old. I was sitting up late one night having a conversation with my mother about something I can’t remember, […]
There is simply no way that a comprehensive human brain simulation will be feasible in the near future.
Kids do the darnedest things. For instance, one time late at night, when I was 9 or 10, I opened the drawer in the kitchen, took out the biggest knife, […]
When we think of technology’s early adopters, we tend to think of the young hipsters in tech hubs like New York or San Francisco, testing out all the cool new apps, gadgets […]
Since the Victorian invention of the modern, romantic concept of childhood, images of the innocent child have dominated Anglo-American culture and its art. Even nude images of young children that […]
A new biotech company has started a citizen scientist project to help map the human microbiome, the spectrum of foreign organisms that outnumber our own bodily cells by ten to one.
Imagine walking into a 1,300-year-old Buddhist cave carved from a cliff overlooking a stretch of the ancient Silk Road in Dunhuang, China. You point your flashlight and frescoes showing musicians […]
Cash-strapped towns are reevaluating church holdings and their use in hopes of claiming much-needed tax revenue. In response, the church asks why they’re being singled out.
“The nest of wickedness is ablaze,” reads the caption in a newly released video from North Korea’s official website, Uriminzokkiri. The video, which features a chilling misappropriation of “We Are the […]
On May 24, 1813, just months after publishing Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen went to a show in search of her female hero. ”I dare say Mrs. D[arcy] will be […]
We can’t toss aside our responsibilities but we can take steps – even small ones – to better manage stress.
Most companies begin with a flash of foresight that leads to an innovation. They come out with a new product or service that satisfies an unmet need, or better yet, […]
What motivated the perpetrators of the carnage at the Boston Marathon on Monday? Authorities area step closerto identifying those responsible, and we may eventually learn why they decided to detonate […]
Women have come a long way in the arts, but there’s still a long way to go. It’s not so unusual to find the work of contemporary women artists in […]
In a radio interview last week, controversial New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg all but conceded that unmanned NYPD spy drones would one day be flying overhead in Manhattan. It’s a “scary” concept, […]
If the Fed still has room to juice the economy without threatening price stability, why doesn’t it?
Biology labs are now inexpensive and mobile enough to be set up in a garage. The kind of genetic tinkering occurring across the nation mirrors the experiments in computing a generation earlier.
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 will include rules for how apps and social networks gather and use personal data from young users.
When I was a teen-age consumer of cheap paperbacks about worlds more interesting than this one, I noticed a clear and sharp split between readers who loved SF (spaceships, time […]
He billed his first presidential visit to Israel as a listening tour, but it turns out Barack Obama is doing quite a bit of speaking as well. On his first […]
You know how sometimes when you put your foot in your mouth and say something really stupid, you try to recover but only stammer out something even dumber and […]
America’s nuclear waste is all dressed up in dry cask storage, with nowhere to go. In 1987, the Yucca Mountain, Nevada, was designated as a “deep geologic dispersal” site for […]