Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it This is the ponderous epigraph of many a high school history term paper. And it’s wrong. Like as not, we’re “doomed” […]
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Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it This is the ponderous epigraph of many a high school history term paper. And it’s wrong. Like as not, we’re “doomed” […]
Starting today, the mobile wallet app allows you to pay for that grande skinny mocha whatsis at 7,000 US locations.
If all of the spending cuts and revenue increases that make up the fiscal cliff go into effect, it would represent an estimated $720 billion in total austerity measures for 2013. Who is ready to stomach that?
The 2012 election was game changing for America, producing groundbreaking shifts involving social issues, such as the legalization of same-sex marriage, and recreational marijuana use, and historical milestones for women […]
While I consider myself to be a rational person and believe there is validity in most of these claims (except the first), I actually think the coming apocalypse may have already arrived . . .
A study published today describes how scientists were able to power a transmitter using the electrochemical potential found in a guinea pig’s cochlea.
The electric gearshift works by receiving signals from a smartphone app, allowing it to calculate the best gear to use in a given location.
Will Germany follow the course of radical transparency or offshore inter-bank deposits?
A professor specialising in spatial analysis at London’s UCL has produced a wonderful interactive map of London produced purely with a peppering of dots marking the locations individuals tweeted from […]
Preliminary results from a study done at a UK primary school with two humanoid robots show that these children respond better to the robots than to adults or to other children.
A Failed Voting System in the Primaries Selects Less-Popular Candidates Mitt Romney won the Republican nomination after building momentum in the primaries in New Hampshire, Florida, Colorado, Arizona, Michigan, and […]
The Election Night spectacle on Fox News featuring an apparently unhinged Karl Rove taking on a roomful of data analyzers who had called the election for President Obama has me […]
Georgia Tech spinoff company TechJect has created an unmanned aerial vehicle that, in size, appearance and actions, resembles a dragonfly. Applications for its use range from gaming to military intelligence.
Perceptions of Promise: Biotechnology, Society and Art is an interdisciplinary project that brings together a group of internationally recognized artists and social commentators to produce a body of original art work […]
On Tuesday, October 2 the lights in Sanaa went out.* The power cut in the Yemeni capital wasn’t particularly surprising. Yemen has been suffering rolling blackouts for years; a problem […]
The first-ever study of climate change’s impact on wild coffee crops shows that Coffea arabica, prized for its genetic diversity, could be extinct within 70 years.
Who won big in last night’s election? Data. Cold, hard data and the analytical tools to interpret it. The Obama campaign won by leveraging unbelievably detailed information about voters, as […]
Now that a second Obama presidency is assured, the agency expects to reveal its progress towards fulfilling the administration’s space travel mandate.
Millions of people depend on the water for drinking and agriculture, but experts say that the presence of natural uranium and thorium poses serious long-term health risks.
For several weeks leading up to yesterday’s election the forecasters were at odds. While traditional polls and pundits predicted an election that was “too close to call,” as noted today […]
Earlier today an apparent US drone strike targeted and killed ‘Adnan al-Qadhi in the area of Sanhan, just south of Sanaa. I say apparent drone strike, because while there is […]
Oh, the swell of hope. The hope that the bipartisanship so critical to progress might somehow arise from the post-election ashes of a rancorous and divisive national election. The […]
Over at the Breakthrough, my latest Public Square column takes a look at the good and the bad of Nate Silver’s cultural celebrity and oracle status. Here’s how the column […]
There are a lot of nightmare scenarios when it comes to the Middle East. Some of these are already visible on the horizon as the New York Times outlines in […]
I was reading a 1937 essay in which the author made casual mention of the problem of “morganatic marriage.” I’d never heard this term before. I figured it might be […]
The same mindset that drives a person to have it all eventually stops them from having what they really want.
The devastation left by Hurricane Sandy has reignited a long-controversial discussion about whether to maintain artificial beaches, especially in light of global climate predictions and diminishing sand reserves.
NASA now has a site, Spot the Station, that lets you register to receive a text alert whenever the craft is passing over your location.
Who will you put your money on — Richard Brandson, Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk?