Online data security continues to prove insufficient, whether it is Facebook hanging on to old photos or Path uploading users’ address books to their servers. Can insurance redress the damage?
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‘Headline thinking’ — which last week I defined as the natural human tendency to “equate the actions of a certain person (or certain specific people) with the actions of a generic […]
In the car, I listen to country music. Country has an ideology. Not to say country has a position on abortion, exactly. But country music, taken as a whole, has […]
Working at Big Think was a constant kick in the pants of my imagination. As a writer, I couldn’t have asked for a job that provided more and stranger ideas […]
Peter Gleick, a water and climate analyst at the Pacific Institute and member of the National Academies, has admitted in a blog post at the Huffington Post to having obtained […]
A satirical take on the financial crisis of the 1720s
How do you transform factory era school systems so that they better serve the needs of an information age society? You don’t do it by being timid. Unlike most school […]
Income inequality in the US is at the highest level in our history. How are private interest groups able to control the conversation and when will consumer-advocates show up to the fight?
In an aside to his contribution to our recent discussion of same-sex marriage (my contribution is here), Big Think’s Peter Lawler wrote that Darwinists agree with many religiously observant people […]
“Indeed terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime,” Edmund Burke wrote in 1757 in his A Philosophical Inquiry Into the […]
“Scientifically literate government leaders who push for evidence-based policies and demonstrate a scientific outlook are needed more than glib panderers with attitude.”
I’m a word nerd. My husband bought me a 20-volume unabridged Oxford English Dictionary as a Valentine’s Day present one year. It was the first Valentine’s gift that I took […]
Several months ago, I wrote a brief post about Yemen’s then acting president Abd Rabu Mansur Hadi. Tomorrow, as you all know, he is set to remove the “acting” from […]
Via Slacktivist, I came across a post on the Christian blog Exploring Our Matrix that asks a perfectly reasonable question: Why Doesn’t the Bible Contain Superior Medical Advice? …you will […]
Tomorrow, February 21, will mark the last day of President Ali Abdullah Salih’s nearly 34 years in power, at least officially. In his place, Yemenis will head to the polls […]
First, a big and heartfelt thanks to all of you who have continued to check Waq al-waq over the past few months as I’ve struggled to overcome several technical issues. […]
Gasoline prices have never been higher this time of the year, reports the Associated Press. At $3.53 a gallon, prices are already up 25 cents since Jan. 1. And experts say […]
This lovely Hanif Kureishi piece on the often misguided drive to tame the wandering mind struck a chord with me. This is familiar: My son, who can skip and sing, […]
Dr. Craig Bowron has done as much as anyone to explain why we’re all about exaggerating what medical science and the coming biotechnology can possibly do to extend particular lives. […]
Internships and mid-career opportunities are increasingly present in Latin-America as the region’s economic growth has proven stable throughout the global recession.
The constant tug-of-war between governmental bodies over environmental policy, and industry’s endless stream of legal challenges, create substantial economic waste.
Despite the homogenizing effect of globalization, many large cities retain their unique character. Indeed, cities can enact meaningful change when national governments will not.
A new study says that children acquire a sense of fairness before they reach the age of two. An equal distribution of resources according to effort is innate and universal, say researchers.
New research published in a scientific journal which measures the psychological and behavioral effects of social media suggests that Facebook makes us happier and more creative individuals.
Neuroscientists have used quantum dots—light-sensitive, semiconducting particles just a few nanometers in diameter—to stimulate neurons which have been damaged by disease or age.
Scientists at UCLA have found that running a mild electric current through the brain’s hippocampus improves memory function. The finding could contribute to Alzheimer’s research.
This week I came across an interesting study by Latitude Research via the MindShift Blog. In collaboration with LEGO® Learning Institute and Project Synthesis, Latitude asked children from across the […]
The insistence of parents, teachers and physicians that children be concentrated fully and absolutely on their school work is a corruption of values, says playwright Hanif Kureishi.
Twin Brothers in Almost Lifelong Relationship Though I don’t read “Dear Prudence” letters, I was struck by a recent headline on Slate (which I do read). ‘Brotherly Love: My twin […]
It was pretty big of the Houston family to let the world, via television camera, into Whitney Houston’s home going celebration, one of the most personal, most heartrending processes any […]