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While the president is “the ultimate authorizer of Armageddon,” what if his mind “is deranged, disordered, even damagingly intoxicated?

It’s simply not possible. Or is it?  Let’s say you’re a middle school principal. How can you engage a large group of consultants, each having anywhere between six to eight […]

The story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son on Mount Moriah is one of the formative myths of Western monotheism. And most theists of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions […]

They should just rename Fox News the “Black Presidents Scare The Shit Out Of Us” network. If nothing else, Sean Hannity is consistent—he inundates the airwaves every day with “Obama […]

As I wrote last year in a chapter at the Oxford Handbook of Climate Change & Society, the imagined public relative to climate change remains a source of ever growing anxiety […]

“Do you think we should get our brains scanned before getting married?” a friend asked me as we browsed a crowded department store, selecting important items for her bridal registry.  […]

Sometimes, when a comment thread bogs down in a long and protracted debate, highly enlightening comments can get lost in the heap. In the cause of preventing one such comment […]

The latest Quinnipiac poll has Rick Santorum ahead of Mitt Romney 35-26 among Republicans and voters who lean Republican. National polls are not by themselves be good indicators of who […]

Summary: The Roman Catholic equivalent of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s “Infidel”. A luminous, extraordinary account of one woman who devoted her life to Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, saw the organization […]

Henry Rollins shares the DIY philosophy he learned from Abraham Lincoln and has always tried to follow. 

Surely the greatest scientific discoveries are the product of imaginative energy and curiosity no less intense or pure than that which animates Hamlet or King Lear. Still, the petty squabble between Reason and Imagination that began in the 17th century persists . . .

As long-time readers know, except on rare occasions, I don’t write about my personal life on this blog. This isn’t because I’m trying to be mysterious; I just don’t think […]

I’d like to tell you why Rick Santorum’s extreme religious views should be blamed for hampering his campaign’s performance on Super Tuesday, but I don’t believe that to be true. […]

South Africa’s president, Jacob Zuma, was recently portrayed with his penis hanging out, by the very talented satirical artist Brett Murray. The piece, entitled The Spear, features President Zuma standing […]

New York Times technology columnist David Pogue says to predict future technologies, focus on what is possible rather than what isn’t, and extrapolate from the behavior of young people.

Thursday, January 19 is when Apple will announce its development of new educational technology. User-friendly interactive electronic textbooks could seriously disrupt the publishing business.

It’s been a while since I last did one of these, but I want to start making it a regular feature. This thread is for you to tell us about […]

Archeologist and entrepreneur Larry Coben describes how he was able to spend very little money, enhance preservation and create an enormous community benefit in a Bolivian village.  

Weeks after Occupy Wall Street organizers apologized for promoting a Radiohead concert that was never to be, Thom York and Massive Attack’s 3D gave a small concert in London.

Imagine a drug that allows you to drink as much alcohol as you like, wake up without a hangover and never have to worry about developing a dependency.

Today the Friends of Yemen met in Riyadh.  One of the key issues, as it often is at these meetings, is that of foreign aid. Several days ago a group […]

As our political and media systems rapidly evolve, social scientists are revisiting and updating existing models, theories, and methods for investigating the effects of the media on political attitudes and […]

In my essay “Into the Clear Air“, I wrote about how people leaving religion often go through a stage of profound darkness. In the end stages of deconversion, there’s acceptance […]

Want your child to be successful? Help her build self-control. Most middle-class children already receive enough cognitive stimulation to develop intelligence close to its full potential. In contrast, many children have room to increase their self-control.

Jonathan Gottschall says stories are good for us. I’ll soon apply myself full-time to story-writing, so you might suppose I’d find this an encouraging thought, but I don’t. It’s an annoying thought. […]

A study that looked at biomarkers in the blood to correlate vitamins and brain function found very clear links between nutrition and brain health, says Alice Walton at the Atlantic. 

Alan Beattie’s new book, “Who’s in Charge Here?” takes a planet-wide look at what’s been going wrong with the global economy. 

In Marriage Confidential I talk about “workhorse wives” with Tom Sawyer husbands. In these marriages, the husband is the dream-chaser and the wife is the exhausted breadwinner who underwrites his […]

Fusion energy expert Marcin Jakubowski has begun an open sourced hardware project that allows individuals to create their own simple tools to build stronger, more sustainable communities.

1n 1947, Ukranian refugee Ihor Ševčenko wrote to England and persuaded George Orwell to authorize a Ukranian translation of Animal Farm. Over six decades later, writer Andrea Chalupa tracked down the story of this extraordinary man.