I spoke with one of Atlanta’s former mayors last week about the new advocacy organization she had just joined. Shirley Franklin, the first black woman to run the city, seems […]
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If you’ve spent time with an environmentalist in the past few years, you’ve probably had a conversation that went something like this: You: I’ve switched to organic peanut butter! After […]
Michael Lewis is probably best known these days for two great sports books, Moneyball and The Blindside. But he originally made his name with Liar’s Poker, a book based on […]
Not that you spend too much time wondering what life would be like if you were a light bulb…but, in case you’re curious, your body’s existence is equivalent to a […]
This past month, Honduras has witnessed an unprecedented series of attacks on journalists: five journalists were killed in March alone, making the country, along with Mexico, one of the two […]
No man is an island…or could be if he tried. Even traits that we believe to be products of our individual genes, choices, or experiences—from our weight to our taste […]
Simon Johnson, MIT professor, former Chief Economist at the IMF and co-founder of BaselineScenario.com, stopped by today to talk about the financial crisis and why we desperately need to get […]
Well before the Kinsey reports, turn-of-the-century Stanford University hygiene professor Dr. Clelia Duel Mosher did a scientific survey of the sexual habits of her era’s women.
A look at the factors behind the brutal civil war that has been taking place in the Congo over the past decade — and the epidemic of mass rape that has swept that country with it.
Researchers at the University of Utah have found that 2.5 percent of the population is able to do two or more tasks at the same time without hurting their ability to perform each.
Columbia University professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic says her team of researchers has grown a human jaw bone using stem cells taken from bone marrow.
Recent evidence indicates that bats have sensitivity to the geomagnetic field, and use it to navigate. When they are traveling miles from home at night they seem to guide their flight, at least in part, by using the magnetic field around them.
New research has found that the ancestors of modern Scottish people left rock engravings that contain a written language from the Iron Age.
It cost $10 billion and took 16 years, but the Large Hadron Collider finally went into operation yesterday in Switzerland — and the world didn’t end after all.
Dominique Browning’s book, excerpted in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, will tell her story. Her story is more than just this, but it begins with this: she was the extremely […]
There’s a new anti-snobbery food movement in France called Le Fooding, which focuses on sensual cooking, that evidently wants to take over America as well.
Why did Texas, remarkably, escape the worst of the burst of the real estate bubble? The state has had a comparatively low mortgage default rate through the recession, and Alyssa Katz looks at the broader secret to the state’s success, and what Washington might learn from it.
“We want to make architecture that people like to use,” said Kazuyo Sejima, who with partner Ryue Nishizawa won the 2010 Pritzker Architecture Prize yesterday. “The jury somehow appreciated our […]
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver may not be starting a “food revolution” with his push to make school lunches healthier, but Marion Nestle gives him credit for trying to get “real food” back into cafeterias.
There you are, minding your own business on the outskirts of Sydney, thinking about seafood, sex, getting ahead, whatever, when whoomf, the aliens’ ship has caught you. And now you’re […]
Not long ago, a report quoting NASA scientists was issued by the National Academy of Science, the highest scientific advisory body to the United States Congress. The report said something that used […]
Journalists often fret over objectivity and neutrality, but the very language they use to report their “objective” stories undercut the possibility of these goals from the start. The headline for […]
After a series of snubs, Europe is suddenly getting a bunch of positive attention from the US. What happened? Maybe Washington is impressed that, after a prolonged struggle to deal […]
South of the Sundarbans mangrove forest, in the Bay of Bengal, lies one of those tiny flecks of land at the center of endless negotiation between two countries—a little patch […]
March has its share of strange and obscure holidays. The first of the month is National Pig Day, the fifth is Multiple Personality Day (a chance for anyone to get […]
A few days ago, I posted about an unusual ad that appeared in my local subway stop. The ad featured a kid with a broken leg hobbling down a hospital […]
While Jews across the world celebrate Passover, it’s an opportune time for many to re-familiarize themselves with the story of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt. The incredible story has been […]
Like Jerry Lewis, comic books seem to be an American institution best appreciated and understood by the French. Jean-Paul Gabilliet’s Of Comics and Men: A Cultural History of American Comic […]
Today’s installment of our series “The Future in Motion” features Joseph Sussman, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT, and Douglas Malewicki, Aerospace engineer and inventor of the SkyTran. The SkyTran is […]
Unhappy news to banish the lingering Earth Hour glow from your cheeks: New York State is hemorrhaging environmental conservation jobs, and funding. Governor Paterson’s “winter of reckoning” (not altogether a […]