This article was originally published on AlterNet. The renowned physicist Max Planck once said, “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the […]
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The problem of having too much information at your fingertips was a problem the poet and novelist Percy Shelley was already aware of by the 19th century. He proposed a solution…
It was this map of Greenland that triggered this post. I say map, but I mean hole in a drainpipe. This picture was sent in by Ruland Kolen, who was […]
The neuroscience of creativity is flourishing. But will the popularity of this subject lead to better, or sloppier science?
James Ceaser, perhaps our most distinguished student of American politics on the conservative side, isn’t about predicting the outcome of elections. That’s actually hard to do. And those political scientists […]
I was laughing myself silly over the Mitt Romney’s “Whole Binders Full of Women” comment last night in the presidential debate—and it’s a strange world where an off the cuff […]
Years ago, when I was a young reporter working for a New England newspaper, I was told, more than once, that our city editor had “the personality of a door […]
Swamped this week. Here’s a post originally published on my personal blog to fill the void. Like many features of the human condition, the first psychological account of disgust comes […]
I’ve been writing a lot lately about reasons to quit the Catholic church, and judging by the demographic trends in many Western countries, there are a lot of people whose […]
William Souder’s 2004 biography of John James Audobon, Under a Wild Sky, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His newest book, On a Farther Shore, chronicles the life and […]
Some research proposes that sorrow in fiction might be a form of psychological relief. A more fruitful explanation is that important virtues, values and morals that elicit uplifting emotions accompany sad moments in fiction.
Could the unforgiving Taklamakan Desert once have been the location of the Garden of Earthly Delights?
The future is a difficult thing to grasp, and not just because we can’t see it. Bringing innovation to life requires imagination, resourcefulness, the sort of limitless creative ambition we today associate mainly with science fiction writers.
All apologies to Michael Jackson, but in the art world, Andy Warhol will always be the King of Pop. The bewigged eccentric didn’t start Pop Art, but his works largely […]
When human biology becomes indistinguishable from its machine parts, in an event known as the Singularity, we will transcend human intelligence, but will we also transcend our feelings?
So, here’s something you should know about me: I really don’t care for racists. A few years ago, a simpering neo-Nazi named Kevin Alfred Strom wrote to me, having somehow […]
It has recently occurred to me that I’m Martian. My friends have taken to smiling and nodding when I talk about this. Some of them have been persuaded. Some of […]
I’ve written in the past about the Secret, more properly called the Law of Attraction, the perenially popular New Age idea which says that merely thinking about something draws it […]
This is part 3 of my review of Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angels of Our Nature”. Read Part 1 here and part 2 here. In my previous post, I discussed […]
What’s the Big Idea? Until the 1980s, the scientific consensus was that the nervous system was fixed and incapable of regeneration. Growth of neurons was considered most active during prenatal […]
What’s the Big Idea? What does the millennial generation want? Today’s recent graduates may still be finding themselves, but the culture has plenty of labels ready. Are they confident or anxious? Rebels against […]
Numbers really are sexy. They are what will power our world for the foreseeable future. They are available like never before, and we know now how to use them wisely.
Over 90% of respondents around the world said that the War on Drugs has failed — and it’s no surprise why.
Fresh off his potential “Colbert Bump,” conceptual artist Jeff Koons took a potential PR black eye this weekend in a New York Times Magazine piece titled “I Was Jeff Koons’s […]
Don’t get me wrong. I love my NPR. My closet is stuffed with their tote bags, and I’ve shoveled dollars their way. Diane Rehm is the greatest thing since sliced […]
Woody Guthrie saw America differently, and his songs were designed to make people think. And yet, what was most appealing about his persona was his perceived authenticity.
The same mindset that drives a person to have it all eventually stops them from having what they really want.
If phantom islands can be discovered as recently as 2012, maybe there are still more of them out there.
See children’s roaming rights shrink dramatically, in just three generations
Today, I had the dubious pleasure of discovering that one of the research associates working at the MIT AgeLab has 1392 unread messages in his primary email inbox. 1392! As in, […]