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In the aftermath of the House Oversight committee vote to hold United States Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, I’ve been pretty dejected these last couple of days. […]

There are editors (the initial and final gatekeepers) who are not catching (or do not care about) these blatant displays of academic dishonesty.

Forget marathons, people. The first 20 minutes of exercise confer all its essential health benefits. Fitness researcher Gretchen Reynolds says you can do anything to get your body moving. 

The point is that being tortured isn’t the point at all – it’s about transforming existential anxiety into clarity, energy, humor, and hope.

Before reading please click ‘View Entire Story’. My apologies for the length. Over at the New Statesman, Mehdi Hasan wrote an article against abortion. It’s not entirely clear whether Hasan […]

British scientists have created artificial muscles that mimic the actual muscle of squids, helping researchers create active-camouflage clothing and smart skin to regulate our temperature. 

When I heard the news of Jonah Lehrer’s fabrications on Monday — indiscretions that led to an apology and his resignation from the New Yorker on Tuesday — my jaw fell. Like […]

The new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayeris pregnant, and not planning on taking maternity leave. This has stirred renewed conversation about “having it all,” and women’s lives. I’ve written before in […]

While scientists jump to answer this notoriously difficult question, scientific observation is not well suited to finding the cosmic will that the question implies. This stumper is better left alone.

Warning: Don’t read this if your funny bone’s in traction, or if your tongue can’t be planted firmly in cheek… On a talk show I heard an ex-agent describe the […]

Increasingly innovative computer scripts are being created that automate entire criminal processes—processes that, in the past, used to require human intervention.  Don’t like your boss?  Threaten to tell his wife […]

Always be looking for solutions, but don’t try too hard, says Jonah Lehrer. When we leave the mind to its own devices and forget about strict concentration, we are more likely to create. 

This article was originally published on AlterNet. What kind of world would we have if a majority of the human race was atheist? To hear religious apologists tell it, the […]

Let’s face a sad truth: To be a book lover in the 21st century is a hard task. In the world of the knowledge economy and of constantly being plugged […]

Andy Warhol looked for fame any place he could find it, so news that a crater on the surface of the planet Mercury has been named in his honor comes […]

While writing this post, my mood will vary. I’ll enjoy the beginning – riffing on a new idea is always exciting – but I’ll inevitably hit difficult patches. A few […]

Note: Before you comment to say “This is not going to change the mind of someone who would issue a death threat”, please don’t. That’s not my point. Ask yourself […]

Class of 2012, you’ve heard it before: you will graduate into a world transformed by the global financial crisis. Unemployment among young people is at its highest rate since WWII, […]

In honor of the birthday (and death date, we think) of the greatest writer in the English language, today, April 23rd, is Talk Like Shakespeare Day. In cities from Chicago […]

Literature is a reflection of life, situated in the present culture but reflecting its universal values. How will the information age be brought to bear on writers and their works?

Longtime readers of this blog may remember that I wrote a book some time ago. What happened to it is something I’ve only alluded to a few times. Suffice to […]

The idea that social classes are intentional constructions built and reinforced for strategic purposes is appealing because no other idea of social class makes much sense to me. 

More or less anybody who has ever done anything newsworthy can cite, as Henry Rollins can, some turning point at which they made a risky decision that paid off, and a lifelong sense of mission not easily derailed by minor failures. 

Is what I experience when I feel love qualitatively different from what a man experiences? Or what a lesbian may experience? If I consider Semir Zeki’s hypothesis that literature and art across the ages show a common substrate for love in the mind, I might suggest that descriptions of sex by male and female authors and artists are sometimes different.

Archimedes in the bathtub, Newton and the apple, Einstein’s theory of special relativity — Eureka! moments are what happens when hours of work come together in a single creative flash. […]

What is the Big Idea? While Congress dukes it out over the federal interest rates on student loans, venture capitalist Peter Thiel has a solution for college students who don’t […]

The utopia of instant, effortless DIY success for writers remains a pipe dream. Still, digital distribution and online networking are calling into question the established paths to artistic fame and fortune. Into this vacuum steps Storiad, an intriguing new approach to empowering writers and connecting them with the right buyers for their work.

There are many ways to look at Europe other than as a collection of nation-states. Plenty of other imagined communities lurk beneath the surface of the standard political map. Check […]

However many drafts and wrong turns it takes, says author Nathan Englander, total commitment to the writing process always results in a story the writer can live with.

Human irrationality is an important and fascinating subject, especially when it’s pitted against the assumption that people are rational, which still dominates modern life. Sometimes though evidence of human irrationality […]