Nobody seems to really like the U.S. tax system. Conservatives complain that taxes are too high, while liberals say the system isn’t progressive enough. Both may well be right. But, […]
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So what will it mean if Rick Santorum wins the Michigan primary tonight if his victory is partly due to Democrats who decided to vote for him only to prolong […]
American politics are getting more Onion-ish. People are mistaking stories from the brilliant parodic newspaper The Onion for “real” news with what seems like growing frequency. Recently, Louisiana Rep. John […]
An editorial in the scientific journal Nature argues that software used to interpret data from scientific experiments must be open source so that others can attempt to repeat the experiment.
Under certain circumstances, giving authorities the password to encrypted computer files is the same as giving testimony against yourself, which is protected by Fifth Amendment.
Yesterday I griped at length over at The Economist about Rick Santorum’s so-called “economic freedom agenda.” One point of Santorum’s ten-point plan includes tripling the tax-code subsidy for kids. I […]
The stateless media organization has released five million emails taken from the private security firm Stratfor, which carries out its own assignments and those of the Pentagon.
Given the pervasiveness of information technology, electronic attacks on Internet infrastructure can prove debilitating. The stakes are getting higher as technology advances.
Guest post from Beth Becker… Social media has always been a fast moving field. What’s new and exciting one day quickly gets tossed aside for the next shiny new toy. […]
Your personal decisions don’t make a difference, argues Gernot Wagner in a provocative new book called But Will the Planet Notice? How Smart Economics Can Save the World.
Bill Nye has always mixed science and comedy, dating back to his early career when he balanced his day job as an engineer at Boeing with his nighttime routine as […]
As I have written here before, many of us are more worried about some environmental risks than the evidence suggests we need to be – mercury, bisphenol a, nuclear […]
–Guest Post by Declan Fahy, AoE Science & Culture correspondent. There is a scene in The Iron Lady when former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is asked by her doctor […]
–Guest post by American University student Becca Stern. People are often scared of topics they do not understand, explain Matthew R. Hartings and Declan Fahy in their article “Communicating Chemistry […]
Conventional measures of economic performance, such as investment and productivity, are often skewed to favor short-term profits. Here is how capitalism can take a longer view.
How can you take soup cans seriously? Is it possible to make high art out of low brow bits from comic books? Critics and even fans of Pop Art have […]
A teacher friend of mine wrote me recently. She said that her school was working on bringing in iPads for grades six and seven next year and asked if I […]
Henry Rollins says that in these turbulent times, it’s more difficult and important than ever to live heroically.
Today I thought I would throw out a question for you to consider: Since people who are married appear to be happier and healthier than people who are single, do […]
–Guest post by Kathrina Maramba, American University graduate student. Recently, Dr. David Agus appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to promote his new book The End of Illness. “Why […]
Henry Rollins shares the DIY philosophy he learned from Abraham Lincoln and has always tried to follow.
The prediction goes like this: China will overtake the US first in real GDP, then in per-capita GDP. In other words, it will become the new America. Yet doubts persist about Chinese growth.
An economic report compiled by the Economist details how many years of economic growth have been lost due to the global recession. Greece has lost 12 years; France, 6; the US, 10.
When the World Bank presidency becomes vacant in July, the US should break with tradition and help appoint an economist and development expert to the post, says Jeffrey Sachs.
This weekend, I spoke at the University of North Dakota, courtesy of an invitation from FUND, the local SSA affiliate. Yes, there are atheists in North Dakota! For those who […]
Iceland, a small, rocky outpost in the North Atlantic and home to just over 318,000 people is not a country that easily makes international headlines. But back in the 1970s, […]
If it is not illegal for a devout Muslim to become the president of the United States, why are people so hell bent on trying to prove that President Obama […]
You already know where you stand on Holden Caulfield. Either you found him a kindred spirit in your youth and continue to sympathize with him—less blindly, more wistfully—as you age; […]
Since the rise of the positive psychology movement a decade ago, happiness has been all the rage. But is it something more than having a cheerful personality? And how do we get happiness?
Japanese scientists have uncovered that the body overcompensates for the drain of physical activity by pumping the brain full of glycogen, a carbohydrate that acts as an energy store.