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The problem with speculative fiction is what might be called “the tour of the garbage disposal plant,” in which somone says to the visiting character, “Well in your day, you did this terribly inefficient thing, but now we have this wonderful garbage disposal plant.”  

“Love, Actually” exemplifies a remarkable transformation from a society that understood female empowerment as a systemic concern to one that interprets all feminist concerns about empowerment through the ideological lens of market-based morality.

“He never is alone that is accompanied with noble thoughts.”- John Fletcher (born on this date in 1579)

Vivian Maier took about 150,000 pictures during her lifetime, but never showed a single one to another living soul. When she died in April 2009, Vivian was remembered as a […]

A few weeks ago I found myself engaged in an all-too-familiar debate. She was frustrated that I was not subscribing to her idea that ‘everything happens for a reason,’ and […]

If people cooked 50 percent of their meals, as opposed to what’s probably 20 percent of their meals, it would have a huge impact on both their health and on the environment, and it would be almost entirely positive. 

A horrendous disease called Sleeping Sickness was close to being eradicated but war in Sudan gave it a new lease on life. 

Other primates don’t seem to share their own desires and intentions with others, which leads to a lack of cooperation in a lot of domains. 

The mechanism for changing your mindset through messaging is the same as for changing a physical behavior: a targeted and limited resolution practiced relentlessly until it becomes automatic. 

A Republican congressman from Georgia, Jack Kingston, thinks the national school lunch program sends a terrible message to our youngsters. “We need to get the myth out of their head,” […]

A million-year natural process takes minutes in the lab.

“Worse than not realizing the dreams of your youth, would be to have been young and never dreamed at all.” – Jean Genet

I want to think about garbage today. Driving home from the store, I made an informal census of the garbage by the side of the road and in the green […]

Lee Smolin: As long as people of faith respect the facts and the deductions of science we should be respectful of their faith and their search for a faith.

Vikas Pota: I care a lot about education because I’m the product of education.  

Chinese state television released this video of the Chang’e-3 space probe landing on the Moon, the first soft-landing in three decades.

The idea of uploading your brain to the Internet has been proposed by the likes of Stephen Hawking and Ray Kurzweil. According to Michael Graziano, the question is not if, but when, and what then?  

“A right is not what someone gives you; it’s what no one can take from you.”- Ramsey Clark (born on this date in 1927)

The future of sex is here, or at least it could be, technically speaking.

Fewer than 14% of American silent films still exist today in complete form according to “The Survival of American Silent Feature Films: 1912-1929,” a recent Library of Congress report by […]

Do you know the science of global warming? Fortunately, Michael Ranney at the University of California, Berkeley, put together a video that explains the science in less than one minute.

Ray Jayawardhana: Being a scientist has given me a chance to see the world.

The astrophotographer Juan Carlos Casado has estimated there are 50 meteors visible in this composite image of the Geminids meteor shower.

Unless you have agreement on facts it’s very hard to agree on remedies for a problem.

Distrust is not a personality trait, nor a cultural trait. It is learned through experience, and can therefore be unlearned through experience. 

The human face is the most precise signal system we have for our emotions. We can read seven different emotions and determine whether they’re being falsified or whether they are genuine expressions.

Learn about a method for making targeted commitments that succeeded virtually every time.

Google’s recent purchase of the defense contractor Boston Dynamics has raised eyebrows, and also brought the inevitable – if overblown – comparisons between Google and Skynet. 

“Writers who used to show off their erudition no longer sing in the bare ruined choir of the media.”- William Safire (born on this date in 1929)

A victory for common sense, a setback for sex and drugs and rock ‘n roll