Most people know that Batman lives in Gotham City, and that this fictional place is a barely disguised version of New York City – so much so that in real […]
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There will be more. Julian Assange has assured us this: there will be more. Do we want more? Will the release of more classified material place more lives at risk? […]
Some of Isabel Allende’s best fiction has been inspired by private correspondence. Yet as Twitter replaces the letter, she fears that we’re losing “the beauty of language.”
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Independent from Denmark for a week every year, the kingdom of Elleore has acquired a fair number of quirks since its founding in 1944.
“This map is basically what would happen if you got a bunch of Japanese guys in a room, got them drunk, and then asked them to draw what they could […]
Day two of the expert workshop on science communication at the Venice Institute of Science & Arts focused more narrowly on the question of defining and evaluating forms of science […]
Designed by J.R.R. Tolkien’s son Christopher and included in most editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the map of Middle-Earth is one of the best-known examples of fantasy […]
I’m nearly done filming a second season of “SCI-FI Science: Physics of the Impossible” on The Science Channel. In this exciting new series, I’ve identified 12 more familiar science-fiction movie, […]
In Scott Turow’s Times Book Review cover piece on Adam Ross’s novel, Mr. Peanut, he recalls the time a revered Stanford writing professor cautioned students against writing about marriage, “the […]
Who decides what “insane” means? This was the major question of Ken Kesey’s countercultural classic “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” which illustrated how mental illness could be deployed by […]
Straight talk express? McCain with Jerry Falwell.Last week, I noted McCain’s not-so-subtle attempt in a new Web advertisement to draw comparisons between Obama and the anti-Christ with the ad using […]
The map was made by James Mazzeo, a long-time associate of Neil Young
What if New York had somehow managed to remain New Amsterdam?
Ironically, the original name for the desert planet is Berber for ‘water springs’
If you are a Star Trek fan, you may long have been fascinated by the idea of a “replicator”; a device where you simply ask for something and the device […]
The War of the Worlds dramatization that aired October 30, 1938 has been called “the most famous radio show of all time.”
Enjoying a piece of music or recognizing the face of a loved one seems like a simple, instantaneous process. But like all things associated with the brain, they aren’t. Both […]
n Have you ever seen the constellation named ‘The Tyrants’, spanning the stars Robespierre and Kubla Khan, stringing together Hitler, Mussolini and Attila along the way? Or how about the […]
There is a ‘precious’ level to this map, and a naughty one.
There have been countless fictional portrayals of fake American presidents in pop culture. From the alien-battling President Thomas Whitmore in “Independence Day” to hopeless romantic President Andrew Shepherd in “the […]
Over at the Columbia Journalism Review, Cristine Russell is back from the World Federation of Science Journalists conference and reports on a panel of leading editors who are generally optimistic […]
Atheism makes for “great blood sport“—at least that is what writer Yann Martel believes. But the writer is far more interested in what cannot be reasoned, and in his Big […]
Not merely a nice flower, but also a political tool
“There was a time when building the future was inspirational,” Brian Fies writes in his new graphic novel, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? “Ambitious. Romantic. Even enobling. I […]
By creating the first theoretical model of a wormhole 75 years ago, Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen allowed science-fiction writers to consider the idea of time travel, writes Dave Goldberg.
The U.S. Navy has successfully tested a sea-bound laser weapon, ushering in a new era of warfare. In light of this news, Big Think presents a timeline of the history of laser technology.
Using lasers to manipulate the weather sounds like science fiction, but researchers at the University of Geneva have done just that. In May, Dr. Jerome Kasparian unveiled the results of […]
n Safe, neutral, boring Switzerland is a strangely fertile source of curious cartography. Previously, this blog has zoomed in on wartime contingency plans for a Schweizer réduit (#109), Jules Verne’s […]
Europe’s most powerful country is annexed out of existence by its neighbours
Revolutions in communication technology and digital media have transformed almost every sector of society, altering the way we express ideas, participate in public debates, connect with others, entertain ourselves, and […]