Football fever surrounds the Fortune Global Forum here in Cape Town, South Africa! Amidst the fascinating discussions about finding high-tech solutions to Africa’s problems, one can’t help but appreciate the […]
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As part of their conversation series with scientists, the NY Times this week runs an interview with Harvard’s Eric Mazur featuring the headline “Using the ‘Beauties of Physics’ to Conquer […]
In Expelled, Richard Dawkins recounts how learning about science “killed off” his faith. And PZ Myers tells us that the more science literacy we have in society, the less religion […]
Economists find dating websites extremely useful, not to find the love of their lives because they provide an opportunity to observe a fascinating market in action: the market for marriage.
Back in 1920, native-born Parisians were a minority in their own city
Are some of our elegant symbols of modernity — smartphones and so on — fueling slaughter and rape in Congo? The New York Times on the campaign for “clean” minerals.
n Over 18.000 votes have been cast in a poll to determine once and for all the answer to the burning question: Combien de bises? That’s French for ‘How many […]
The Sunday Washington Post leads with a story that greenhouse gas mitigation proposals in Congress are likely to stall, in part because several key lawmakers believe (or at least claim) […]
n They did a lot of crazy stuff in the Sixties, man. Especially at universities like Berkeley, a hotbed of political radicalism, of experiments with free love and cheap drugs (or […]
One of the eerier themes in psychology papers is the extreme susceptibility of people’s thoughts and acts to incidental details in their surroundings. For instance, this paper from a recent […]
A new study in Nature finds that magma from the Chaiten eruption sped through the crust – and you can ask the author about it!
n A pene-enclave is almost an enclave in the same way that a peninsula* almost is an island. But only on a strictly lexical level. If we descend from the […]
Except for some of the harsh, impermanently inhabited and sparsely visited inlands of Kerguélen, there are no places left on Earth to name. Those with a penchant for baptising should […]
Next week there will be big news on the science communication front. In anticipation, I was just going back over some things that I have written on the topic over […]
I am taking a couple of weeks off. But while I’m away, I thought I’d share with you some of the what I consider to be this year’s essential readings […]
The real target of yesterday’s decision to overturn California’s gay marriage ban was the Supreme Court. Judge Vaughn Walker knew that his ruling would not be the final word. His […]
n n I first encountered the term ‘galoshes’ in the same Russian novels that also introduced me, albeit equally theoretically, to the samowar*. Subsequently, I’ve always thought of galoshes (also […]
Everybody was getting ready for conflict, but at least they all agreed this map was funny
“This map makes clear the Nazi design, not only against South America but against the United States as well”, said FDR
Haven’t heard of Second Life? It’s a 3-D virtual world built by users or “residents” worldwide. Imagine the video game World of Warcraft, but no game, just a cyber-community evolving […]
This fall in the sophomore-level course I teach on “Communication and Society,” we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter […]
A youngster in breeches and an elderly man with a scythe, both white and together looking rather vulnerable, are playing dice against a team of unreliable-looking Asians. The object of their […]
Even old New York / Was once New Amsterdam / Why they changed it I can’t say / People just liked it better that way – They Might Be Giants: […]
I’ve been critiquing the Tea Party since its first stirrings in 2009. I’ve blogged, tweeted, reported, and even given public lectures about its roots in the socially conservative New Right, […]
If Americans were paid to eat less and exercise more they might be motivated to lose some weight—and save us a bundle on health care—says Dr. Barry M. Popkin, director […]
President Theodore Roosevelt vetoed the idea.
This semester in the sophomore-level course I teach on “Communication and Society,” we spent several weeks examining the many ways that Americans are using the Internet to alter the nature […]
The U.S. military is investing in all kinds of augmentation – pills you ingest, body armor you can wear, and machine parts you can add to your body.
New York magazine’s cover story on the (negative) impact of children on happiness begs a larger question—and one appropriate so near to Independence Day (“life, liberty, and the pursuit” etc.): […]