“The next X PRIZE competition, the Google Lunar X PRIZE, is offering $60 million to land a robotic rover on the moon and use it to complete certain objectives.”
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“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” reads Hebrews 11:1 in the King James Bible. Attempts to give faith tangible form here […]
In last month’s Harper’s, Gary Greenberg writes in “The War on Happiness: Goodbye Freud, Hello Positive Thinking,” that, increasingly and unavoidably, the concept of enlightenment via sitting in a room […]
As usual, California is the battlefront for energy and climate change issues. Oil refiners Valero and Tesoro have spent $5.5 million dollars in support of California’s Proposition 23, which would […]
How is it that we’re able to focus on a distant conversation while ignoring the person who is speaking right in front of us? Tony Zador, a neuroscientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, breaks down the brain mechanisms that allow us to have selective auditory attention.
There’s no such thing as a verbatim, facsimile memory, says USC neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. When we reconstruct events in our minds, we are pulling together set sequences of specific details stored in different parts of the brain.
Random acts of kindness have been shown to increase everything from self-esteem to happiness level. At the same time, the paradox of choice is known to increase our cognitive load […]
Delusions of control seem built into the human mind, even when they aren’t comforting. More than a few people, for example, would prefer to think hurricanes are punishments for abortions […]
“Positive psychology is a movement in social psychology which attempts to change the way that we think about humans,” explains positive psychology expert Shawn Achor. “Instead of focusing merely on […]
Politico reports that senior Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are trying to sell lobbyists for the energy and telecom industries on the idea that the Republicans will […]
What future is there for journalism? Or is there a future in journalism for many of the bright young things who will have read a recent article titled ‘The Hamster […]
72% of women say they’ve faked an orgasm in their current relationship, while 55% of men claim they know when the woman they are with is faking.
If you watch The Daily Show, you wouldn’t be surprised to learn that host Jon Stewart’s father was a physicist. The popular program, along with its partner in satire The […]
“Science validates the notion that people with a strong social network live longer. It’s not yet clear if the benefits apply to those who turn to the Internet for friendship.”
“Just a few small changes in the social behaviors of even solitary animals may set in motion an evolutionary cascade ending in massive, globe-spanning migrations.”
The Boston Globe says more must be done to ferret out conflicts of interest in peer-reviewed journals, which are a key way doctors keep informed of cutting-edge research.
“Online video radically changes the reach and speed of the improvement cycle. Things like dance, snowboarding and TED talks keep getting better, and faster…”
“Gaga’s entire persona seems to question what’s expected of women.” ‘Lady’ with suggestions of gentility, sweetness…’Gaga’ with intimations of infantility, madness…
A mobile-web advertising company is facing a proposed class action over its use of an HTML5 ‘trick’ to track iPhone and iPad users across a number of websites.
“For sound mental health, the fundamental question is not whether a thought is negative or positive, but whether it is accurate.”
The German government is banking on help from imams educated at German universities to improve the integration and “success” of its young Muslims.
Is piracy an enemy or a necessary part of business in a digital world? This Swedish video game developer sees it as the latter and even a benefit in terms of marketing.
How would a medical audience respond to a lecture that was completely devoid of content, yet delivered with authority by a convincing phony? Overwhelmingly positively…
Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker’s research looks at how language exists in our minds, and how it informs the way we create social relationships.
Tod Machover, who has been called America’s most wired composer, is poised to transform your theater experience forever. His new opera “Death and the Powers,” will be unveiled on September […]
According to a recent press release: NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, will complete the exploration phase of its mission on Sept. 16, after a number of successes that transformed […]
Every week, it seems, we get more bad news about the economy. Today the Census Bureau reported that the median household income in the U.S. fell several hundred dollars in […]
If you are not a regular viewer of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, you might be surprised by results from Pew’s latest news audience report. In the national […]
Great post by Thomas MacAulay Millar on the case of “FV,” a teenage runaway who was allegedly tortured, pimped, and nearly killed by a middle aged man who took her […]
One of my roommates way back when I was an undergraduate was an Emory Scholar. I can’t remember exactly how many of them were in each class—either twelve or fourteen. […]