Elizabeth Bernstein has a thoughtful and interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal about the troubling incivility, cruelty, and rudeness that many people unleash online, in Comments sections, on Twitter, […]
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[Editor’s Note: It’s happening again. I hadn’t gotten any of these messages since last year, and I was starting to hope that the wormhole, or whatever strange conduit it was, […]
In case other social media platforms aren’t providing the conflict you want, Deeyoon gives you the ability to participate in live, real-time, structured video debates.
A “nosy” smartphone app asks users 50 questions and displays results in real time.
Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon can take off at a moment’s notice and escape from pursuers into space. And can land on almost any patch of ground. Why can’t we do that in 2012? The problem is the puny power of the chemical rocket.
Could the unforgiving Taklamakan Desert once have been the location of the Garden of Earthly Delights?
To combat a decline in the number of computer science graduates, Microsoft is putting software engineers to work as teachers as part of its Technology Education and Literacy In Schools program.
Is de facto racial segregation in public schools a problem? A strong and vocal majority of readers responding to my Economist post on the dearth of blacks and Hispanics at […]
A just-released poll by Quinnipiac reveals that President Obama now holds a not insurmountable 4-point lead over Romney overall—but he has an eye-popping 18-point lead among women voters. It’s hard […]
Flightfox, a new startup, uses its team of experts — many of whom are ordinary people — to find the cheapest fares for a proposed trip, with the winner receiving a finder’s fee.
A number of different factors are involved in the decrease of marriage among Iranians, and some are calling for potentially radical solutions.
Is there any more famous footage of an artist at work than Hans Namuth’s film of Jackson Pollock? More than half a century after Pollock’s death, the “Jack the Dripper” […]
Currently being considered: A law that, if passed, would punish anyone who “insults” religious believers or holy sites. The Russian Orthodox Church and other religions are on board, but artists say it will only increase self-censorship.
The interdisciplinary approach both to research and learning is starting to gain favor again because small and nimble research labs are proving that they have a method for speeding the pace and reducing the cost of discovery.
“When I was young and bold and strong, O, right was right and wrong was wrong! My plume on high, my flag unfurled, I rode away to right the world. […]
Entomophagy — the practice of eating insects — is already common in many parts of the world, but as scientists look to bugs as a serious alternate food source, one businessman sees himself as a pioneer.
Two European carpooling sites recently gained the favor of venture capitalists, who point to years of declining car ownership independent of the current economic recession.
Daniel Kahneman makes an important point, one rarely addressed so directly in academic circles – that the ego-clashes we tend to excuse among high-achievers are dangerously counterproductive when it comes to advancing human knowledge. He proposes adversarial collaboration as one alternative.
At Sunday’s elections, Venezuelans will use one of the most sophisticated and highest-ranked electronic voting systems in the Western Hemisphere. However, suspicions abound.
Facing slow growth in other countries, a variety of airlines and other aviation-related businesses are taking advantage of expanding African economies.
Focusing on what the materials have to teach us is a staple of design thinking, and a powerful mindset for anyone seeking to create anything with structural integrity.
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 […]
After a certain level of income, money is not very effective in creating happiness. British economist Adair Turner argues that economic growth is not priority-number one.
Like many others, I watched a man shoot himself on “Live TV”, days after it went live. I watched Fox News anchor Shepard Smith react too late to an incident […]
How is it possible that even in a time when encyclopedic knowledge is available at our fingertips, we still get the facts wrong and often get them wrong in egregious fashion?
The field of neuroeconomics hoped to begin explaining human behavior in ways that could have predicted the financial crash of 2007, but such theories have not been forthcoming.
Despite the seductive fusion of evolutionary principles with modern neuroscience, our search for an ultimate explanation of human behavior is not likely to find solutions any time soon.
This past Friday I headed down to the Baltimore Book Festival, an annual three-day street fair full of readings, panels, small press exhibitions, and overstuffed bookshelves on city lawns. It […]
The broad philosophical differences between cultures, divided broadly into East and West categories, inform our responses to major life events, including our response to death.
By manipulating the communication abilities of a parasitic virus, geneticists have taken the first steps toward creating a biological Internet where natural processes can be augmented.