Five insights that give us the scientific understanding to move into the twenty-first century in a knowledgeable way and to begin to choose the future that we want.
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Be prepared for the fact that the upcoming year won’t be free of distractions and problems no matter how hard you work on your goals, but the most important thing is to stay within the routine you establish and don’t attach yourself to the results.
According to computer scientist Jaron Lanier, the right way to understand the famous “Turing Test” is to understand that it “began in the mind of somebody who was very close to suicide.”
Does it reveal the location of the doldrums?
My Christmas gift to you is this version of the African-American spiritual “Go Tell on the Mountain,” sung by the Blind Boys of Alabama (with Stephen) on the Colbert Show. […]
Trial by social media has ruled that the accused be reprimanded swiftly in 140 characters, with lazy and possibly sexist swipes, threats and sentences probably worse than the initial Tweet itself.
Let others debate whether Santa Claus is white or not. There’s no debate that the definitive American Santa is political cartoonist Thomas Nast’s Merry Old Santa Claus (detail shown above) […]
Using photo mosaics and elevation data from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), this video commemorates the 45th anniversary of Apollo 8’s historic 1968 flight by recreating the moment when the crew first saw and photographed the Earth rising from behind the Moon.
Immanuel Kant said it best when famously asserting that everything has either a price or dignity. In choosing to take money for its part in a massive deception, RSA early on gave up the right to chalk its actions up to altruism, national security and the global war on terror.
When you looked at advertisements for campaigns or projects, you would think that almost every African on the continent has HIV/AIDS, that as soon as you stepped foot there you were at risk.
Professor David Nutt who was recently awarded the Nature/Sense About Science prize for standing up for science, this month gave a short talk at Bristol TEDx which might make you […]
As we end 2013 and look toward 2014 in global health, we’re reminded that the world is a very fragile place.
Coca-Cola is by no means the first company to ignore inconvenient animal behavior facts, so we shouldn’t be too hard on them. To Coke’s credit, they do support polar bear research and conservation efforts.
Faced with unfortunate facts or inconvenient truths? Here’s a handy guide for denying scientific consensus.
Paul Allen talks about the process of tackling humanity’s greatest challenges through the collaboration of great minds.
Nicholas Negroponte talks about the failings of the current education system and the need for a more nuanced and personalized approach that teaches students how to learn.
Vint Cerf, one of “the fathers of the Internet,” discusses one of the unintended consequences of his creation – the erosion of privacy.
David Shenk: I think the really dangerous and oppressive myth of IQ is that IQ tests are identifying some kind of quantity of intelligence that we are born with and that we have this static amount of intelligence that we’re going to carry with us throughout life.
Kids might be immensely great at something, but they’re never performing at a great adult level.
There is a large group of child prodigies who go on to a life of relative mediocrity.
The difference in personalities between people who get good at stuff or get great at stuff is the people who get great at stuff really find satisfaction in the constant pushing process.
A parent who wants their child to be great at something, absolutely cannot put love out there as a reward.
The old notion of giftedness, the notion that we are born with a certain quantity of intelligence or a quantity of talent really isn’t there.
You just absolutely cannot separate the affects of genes from the affects of the environment, so all we can do is identify the resources that we have in our environments and maximize them as best we can.
David Shenk: I don’t think it’s really important to make a dividing line to try to figure out when you’ve crossed over into genius.
Peter Ward: I’ve got a 12-year old son. The only way to get to him is a video game. That’s what he wants to do all the time.
There is only one place in our solar system with stable liquid lakes and seas on its surface, besides planet Earth. Saturn’s moon Titan is this place.
What is it about the Earth that has allowed life to continue for such long periods of time? The most important factor is plate tectonics.
If you really look at the history of life on this planet, you see a lot of biologically-produced catastrophes. Where do they come from? From life itself.
Peter Ward: Not going extinct doesn’t mean you’re not going to be miserable, and by misery I mean, wholesale, enormous human mortality.