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A tilt in the usual orientation shows Moscow in a much more threatening perspective

Whether or not there is a creativity crisis may be up for debate, but one thing is clear: Our current education system is failing to create an environment that truly fosters creativity . . . Now, a new application out of MIT Media Lab is aiming to address some of these issues.

Here’s a treat for all you cruciverbally obsessed Hungarian cartophiles out there: a Magyarophone crossword in the shape of Old Hungary, i.e. the other half of the Austrian-led Double Monarchy […]

What if you could manipulate abstract, digital information like it were a tangible, physical thing? A new development out of MIT Media Lab promises to do just that. Slurp is […]

On August 23rd, the Public Broadcasting System launched a new web portal for promoting the arts. PBS Artsspearheads an overall expansion of arts programming to take place over the next […]

Trypanophobia – the extreme, irrational fear of needles – is said to affect 10% of American adults. And then there are the merely squeamish ones, for whom getting a shot […]

Fact: over half the world’s population lives in cities. Fact: all developed cities like New York, Tokyo, Singapore and London, are in a race to become “wired”.  Fact: the most […]

Hybrid Reality has just spent a week in one of our favorite places: Singapore. As the city-state celebrates its 45th birthday, it continues to enjoy a unique status as an […]

What does the future look like? We essentially rely on science fiction thrillers to give us a taste of what lies ahead for humanity: Avatar; Iron Man; I, Robot; Surrogates; […]

You may want to think twice before your next visit to the doctor’s office. According to Dr. Barbara Starfield’s now-famous study, iatrogenic deaths (those resulting from treatment by physicians or […]

The world can be sliced and diced in many ways, and one of them is by dividing it into the 245 ccTLDs that cover every country and territory in the […]

“This map makes clear the Nazi design, not only against South America but against the United States as well”, said FDR

Part 1 of Eruptions Etna Week with guest blogger Dr. Boris Behncke – everything you ever wanted to know about the Sicilian volcano!

n China has land borders with 14 other countries – a world record*. And yet you should not think of China as particularly well-integrated with its neighbours. In fact, as […]

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 […]

Portugal’s inferiority complex leads to a very curious comparison

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 […]

In the Matrix trilogy, God is portrayed as a software Architect. The fact that the first movie was released in 1999 is appropriate since software code had begun to exert […]

Prester John as virtual as he was virtuous, the legend literally too good to be true.

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 […]

Now that Russia has recognised the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the improbable phantom nation of Transnistria (1) might be gearing up for its own fifteen minutes of geopolitical […]

When designer Katie Salen was teaching at the University of Texas a decade ago, she came upon a novel teaching method while trying to help her students understand online interfaces […]

By mid-century there will likely be 9 billion people on the planet, consuming ever more resources and leading ever more technologically complex lives.

In a recent article in The Australian, Matthew Westwood writes about Canadian social scientist Sarah Thornton, whose book Seven Days in the Art World (cover above) “explores the dynamics of […]

Not being able to find a demo of Google TV online, I am still at a loss as to why I would want Google TV. It was perhaps telling that […]

“In fact, it is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. Some say that the only thing that quantum theory has […]

In just a few years, basic microchips will be so cheap they could be built into virtually every product that we buy, creating an invisible intelligent network that’s hidden in our walls, our furniture, and even our clothing.

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 […]

Newspapers may be dying, but the news business is not. The paper part of the business—the physical newspaper itself—is doomed. It no longer makes any sense to print and distribute […]

Somewhat predictably, several pundits and commentators have framed Thursday’s Pew survey as supporting an all too common yet misleading “fall from grace” narrative about the place of science in society. […]