It is remarkably easy to report false-positive findings, or results that support an effect that, in reality, does not (or may not) exist.
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Of all the surreal moments in the Penn State sex scandal surrounding the actions of former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, the most surreal for me was watching on a […]
A computer program has been trained to grade breast cancer, predicting which tumors are associated with worse outcomes and, therefore, deserve more aggressive treatment.
The Telesar V Robot Avatar delivers touch, audio and sight data to its human operator from a remote location using a series of sensors and a 3-D head-mounted display.
N.A.S.A. has produced a material that absorbs over 99 percent of the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and far-infrared light—a development that promises to open new frontiers in space technology.
Technology is getting smarter, increasingly capable of white-collar work like legal research and medical diagnoses. Will machines finally put us out of work or can we work together?
Whether you see him as Herman Cain, The Herminator, or Herman the Horrible—any way you slice it, the Cain Controversy owns the GOP presidential nominee narrative for the foreseeable future.
Joe Therrien, an OWS activist and semi-employed drama teacher, has become infamous since the Nation included him in an article on “The Audacity of Occupy Wall Street,” which began like […]
Religious groups, labor groups, women’s rights groups, environmental groups and various business interests all offer “scorecards” that rate politicians. So why not atheists? Penn Jillette fills the void.
The International Energy Agency, known for its typically conservative estimates when it comes to climate change, has produced a disturbingly gloomy report on the future of the planet.
A Russian space probe headed for Mars’ moon Phobos has stalled in Earth’s orbit. Meanwhile, N.A.S.A. plans to launch its biggest Mars rover yet in just over two weeks.
While I voted yesterday, I thought about the Occupy movement. As I cast a “yes” ballot for the right to buy alcoholic beverages on Sundays at package shops in John’s […]
Under a new energy proposal from the Obama administration, the Atlantic and Pacific coasts would remain off-limits to further oil drilling schemes but the Arctic would be opened up.
No, not outer space. The very space in which everything exists is still poorly understood by physicists. Since Einstein, we have known space has a structure but not how it functions.
Will the people sounding dramatic warnings about the latest risk-du-jour ever realize that in some cases the fear they cause may well do more harm than whatever it is they’re […]
The world’s largest array of radio telescopes may soon be awarded to South Africa. Besides revolutionizing our knowledge of the cosmos, the project could spark a scientific renaissance.
“There’s always an opportunity to give money, if that’s an option,” says Mary Ellen Iskenderian. “But giving money is just not sufficient.”
Surprise, surprise. CNN and MSNBC viewers tend to be more concerned about climate change while Fox News viewers tend to be more doubtful.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, my wife and I have for several years been attending a Unitarian Universalist church in the New York area. Unitarian Universalism is officially a […]
This has been a big week for the U.S. domestic airline industry and its embrace of environmentally-friendly biofuels. On Monday, a United Airlines jet completed the first-ever biofuel-powered commercial flight […]
So Tocqueville found two sources of the American devotion to universal education. The first is the universal literacy that is a requirement for a country where everyone works for himself. Being […]
Deron Durflinger, a high school principal in Van Meter, Iowa, says: We need a system that isn’t based on doing well on NAEP and PISA, but in which students are […]
A friend of mother’s, a lovely older woman, casually remarked recently that the only way she would consider dating again would be if she found a man willing to provide […]
Honda’s Asimo robot can now run faster, balance better on uneven surfaces, hop on one foot and even pour a drink. Some of those skills may allow it help clean up the Fukushima plant.
Doug Melton, of Harvard’s Stem Cell Institute, speaks of a new era of medicine in his Floating University lecture. Medicine will no longer aim to simply fix you if you have a disease or injury, but replenish you in order to maintain your young and vibrant state.
Employers now have a new tool “to cut through the crap and get to the right person” when recruiting–a video interview screening service.
I think it’s about time that we get rid of the idea that cheating is a bad thing per se. Generally speaking, cheating is nothing else than collaboration, something we […]
Twitter’s microblogging/social network is much smaller than Facebook. So why do tweets have the edge in promoting news content–especially on mobile?
When Leonardo da Vinci painted at the court of Milan from 1482 through 1499, he contributed to the revolution in seeing we now know as the Renaissance. Lorenzo de’ Medici […]
Two-thirds of people surveyed in the U. K. support the temporary shutdown of services such as Twitter and Facebook in future riots in order to stem the spread of unrest.