I kind of want to move to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Actually, not really, but I may visit more often once the new 2nd Avenue Subway line is […]
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With Stephen Colbert on vacation this week, Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona seems to have jumped into the role of the laughable conservative who makes ridiculous arguments with a straight face — or, in this case, who tries to make worthwhile political science research sound ridiculous.
The SpaceX Dragon is scheduled to make a demonstration launch this Saturday to the International Space Station, an important milestone in the private space race. And yet, SpaceX founder Elon Musk isn’t content. He’s eying Mars, with or without NASA.
What’s the big deal about J.P. Morgan’s $2 billion trading loss? Austan Goolsbee, an economic advisor to President Obama, said the American public should be concerned because, in his words, […]
When I was five my family got its first microwave oven. The department store sent a nice lady over to teach my mother how she could use it to roast […]
Despite a recent privacy snafu, the creator of the smartphone-based social network Path says he wants to create a portable Internet that provides an intimate place for private social groups.
A new education initiative brings together app developers and professional educators to use the power of tablet computers in the classrooms. New apps teach everything from spelling to Chinese script.
Last week the House voted 218-208 to block the National Science Foundation from funding political science research. No other type of research would be blocked by the NSF budget amendment. […]
MIT economist Esther Duflo has documented how anti-poverty programs create an economic benefit larger than the sum of their parts. She says the margin represents the yield of hope’s seeds.
So, I guess Facebook is here to stay. In honor of its over-subscribed IPO, I’m brainstorming about how social media might be existentially changing our romantic lives and intimacy. Here’s […]
A Ukrainian feminist movement called Femen draws attention to their cause by stripping from the waist up. Is that political action or simply playing into a hyper-sexual female stereotype?
Increasingly innovative computer scripts are being created that automate entire criminal processes—processes that, in the past, used to require human intervention. Don’t like your boss? Threaten to tell his wife […]
Tribalism is pervasive, and it controls a lot of our behavior, readily overriding reason.
While researching creativity for his book Imagine: How Creativity Works, Jonah Lehrer spent some time at 3M, analyzing the company culture that earned it the title of third most innovative company in the world in a recent survey of executives.
So I’ve been thinking a lot about modern progress over the last couple of days. One reason, of course, is that the president explained to us that his view on […]
In a case of tiger parenting gone horribly awry, a chilling photo taken in a Chinese high school shows students hooked to IV protein drips while preparing for college entrance exams.
The American democracy increasingly rests in the hands of professional politicians and special interest lobbies. In the age of the citizen scientist, we need a renaissance of the citizen citizen.
Despite recent cases involving Walmart and JP Morgan, government regulation has kept business abroad relatively clean. Rather than loosen those regulations, other countries should follow suit.
This lecture on “diagnostic inflation” or the over-diagnosis or mental disorder by Allen J. Frances, the chair of the DSM-IV task force, is important. Watch it. Frances lays out absolutely […]
The vast empire over which human reason once ruled has been made a fiefdom by current neurological research. The brain is as vulnerable to outside influence as any other organ.
In a previous post about debating on Twitter, I wrote that I conduct most debates these days through the Socratic method. I find this more effective than arguing by assertion, […]
A clever experiment designed by Harvard researchers suggests that we mostly imagine, and recall, positive visions of the future. Though negative forecasts occasionally help us correct our course.
In Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World, there’s a chapter titled “Maxwell and the Nerds” about James Clerk Maxwell, the Scottish physicist who discovered the four equations that govern electricity and […]
New research suggests that everyone–even atheists–exhibit better self-control when they are thinking about spiritual or religious matters. But why does everyone seem to obey God?
By hosting an interdisciplinary public conversation over the relationship between neuroscience and artistic endeavors, Nobel laureate Eric Kandel seeks a fuller understanding of human behavior.
Accusations have come forward that Mitt Romney was a high-school bully, behavior consistent with his pranksterish past. But what makes some kids pick on others in the first place?
On the one day that we think the most about mothers, grandmothers, godmothers, and all other motherly types, it seems appropriate to ask what is the greatest Mother’s Day portrait […]
Switching between the different hours of your work and social life can cause you to put on weight, says new research. What if working hours were more accommodating to our social lives?
Since the industrialization of agriculture and the more recent trend toward genetically modified foods, we have lost an astounding 93% of the diversity in our food seeds.
A new outdoor gym in the English city of Hull encourages people to exercise by showing them a tangible return: Enough electricity to light the outdoor space and power their phones.