“A poem should not mean/ but be,” Archibald MacLeish declared in his poem “Ars Poetica.” We too-often look to the arts to explain life itself as if they function as […]
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The 2008 elections, in which pro-gay-marriage campaigners won a sweep at the ballot box, is a clear sign that the tide of society is shifting in favor of equality. We’ve […]
Elementary health metrics such as a mother’s body weight and whether she smokes have helped researchers build a formula that predicts childhood obesity rates with 80 percent success.
Despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary, the flu shot makes it less likely that you will contract the flu. Studies show that we have a particularly strong mental reaction to getting a flu vaccine.
A new meta-study out of Harvard suggests that salt and chemical preservatives in meats like bacon, salami and hot dogs are worse for your health than the same amount of red meat.
“My daughter and I just finished reading Life of Pi together,” President Obama wrote to the novelist Yann Marteltwo years ago. “It is a lovely book,” the President continued, “an elegant proof of […]
The Democrats, at their convention, stood so stridently for the rights of the liberated single woman that they offered the Republicans the opportunity to counter with a defense of the […]
Evolution is by definition a difficult concept to grasp since you can’t observe it happening in front of you. Nevertheless, some unlikely converts are coming over to Bill Nye’s point of view.
The only thing needed for the Wiki Weapon project to go forward is a federal firearms license.
This seems to be a week of sex-focused controversy. But then sex tends to have that effect, even when it’s just our own species. Nelson Jones wrote about a German […]
Medical tech startup Scanadu has met its goal of having a prototype device ready by the end of this year. It works by reading vital signs from the user’s temple.
Will you be better off this year than your were in the past? To the futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil, the answer is a resounding yes.
For readers in the Boston area, I will be giving a talk at Boston University’s College of Communication on Thursday, December 6 The talk is a preview of the […]
This is my second installment in a series on excellent TV shows and the 2012 election. I’m skipping over Girls for now and turning to the HBO series Big Love. […]
By fitting a computer, a camera, and a projector into the spot where the bulb would go, the lamp can display information onto a surface, and recognize and respond to user contact with that surface.
A University of Massachusetts team is developing a breathable fabric made of nanotubes that can switch into a protective state in case of a biological or chemical weapons attack.
If you live in an American city, chances are this past summer and fall you have experienced the health effects of climate change. As Richard Harris reported at NPR News in September, […]
For a mere ¥100,000 (about $1,200), expectant couples can get a service that will turn MRI data into an image that can then be printed using a 3D printer.
[Editor’s Note: Please welcome guest blogger Andrew Tripp, author of Considered Exclamations and president and co-founder of the DePaul Alliance for Free Thought, a Secular Student Alliance and Center for […]
If phantom islands can be discovered as recently as 2012, maybe there are still more of them out there.
At 17 billion times the mass of the sun, it could be the biggest of its kind found to date, and its existence may shake up scientists’ knowledge of how galaxies are born and evolve.
Editor’s Note: Today I’m thrilled to have a guest post by Adam Baron, an excellent journalist, who is working and writing from Yemen. Today, he wrote a must-read story on […]
The debate over the fiscal cliff has spawned a multitude of suggestions for reforming the tax system, including my own. One possible reason for the wide range of proposals, even from mainstream economists, is that the recommendations of standard economic theory may be very different from what the American economy actually needs today. Here are two views of taxation, from the theoretical and realistic standpoints – can you find a happy medium between them?
In 1975, rock legend Lou Reed released an album entitled Metal Machine Music. The album consists of no songs, no lyrics and is entirely devoid of melody and rhythm. Instead, […]
Unique architecture may play a role in Einstein’s creativity and ability to solve complex problems in physics.
A Spanish company has successfully completed a test of a balloon that could take passengers 20 miles above Earth, just a few miles short of Felix Baumgartner’s October launch spot.
A new UN report warns that if thawing continues as expected, major ecosystems will be impacted and large amounts of methane and carbon dioxide will be released into the atmosphere.
The rate represents a drop over the past year compared to the previous year, but almost 1800 square miles was still lost, possibly due to rising deforestation in some Brazilian states.
The same machine used to discover the Higgs boson particle may also have produced something that would most likely have last existed around the time of the Big Bang.
Dear Representative Boehner, Earlier this month, after President Obama was re-elected, you assured America in an interview that you are the “most reasonable, responsible person here in Washington.” No one […]