While the U.S. can expect sustained efforts to slash the defense budget, it faces a growing strategic challenge: China has been engaged in a rapid and wide-ranging military buildup.
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Lower college tuition fees can reduce risky sexual behavior in teens as students will have more to lose when things go wrong.
When you think of Burberry, do you think of prim and proper English models wearing plaid coats or do you think of beautiful exotic scantily clad holographic models walking on […]
What does today’s anniversary of 9/11 mean for the 9/11 generation, who did not let America’s greatest national tragedy break them. How will its legacy define their lives over time?
As soon as commentators began to refer to the popular uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East as the ‘Arab Spring’, I began to worry that the near universal […]
Ever since scientists in Germany announced last year the ability to create a small-scale cloak of invisibility for a 3D object the size of a human hair, there has been […]
The tag line of Picture This is “Looking at art leads to thinking about life.” That idea has never been truer than during the week ahead of us.
So I’m in Seattle at the meeting of the American Political Science Association. The APSA meeting has to be one of the diverse and tolerant academic associations in the world. […]
It’s easy to see the appeal of the idea that we can put a definitive end to our suffering or grief and start a new chapter of life without sorrow, guilt, or anger. But it just isn’t true.
What is this thing called self-control? We speak of exerting will power, of forcing ourselves to go to work, of restraining ourselves and of controlling our temper as if it were an unruly dog.
An Italian woman is the latest person to have a murder sentence reduced on the grounds that abnormalities in her brain, and genes, could explain her aberrant behaviour.
“There is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast,” said Herman Melville. He meant that the lives we think we’d love, lacking contrast, would be miserable.
It is 50 year after Stanley Milgram’s groundbreaking experiments on obedience to destructive orders—what have we learned from the most controversial research of our times?
Swiss and American researchers have found a way to program cells to determine whether they have become cancerous, and if they have, to order their own suicide.
A coercive approach to drug treatment has gained wide support in Russia that once involved strapping patients to beds while they undergo the harsh agonies of withdrawal.
For the first time, researchers have shown viruses can be delivered through a person’s bloodstream to infect cancer cells without infecting other tissues, according to a new study.
As we age, our bodies change in ways that challenge athletic ability. But exercise also can slow down—and in some cases even prevent—some of the physiological ravages of time.
Will we solve the problem of runaway heath costs? Thanks to incentives and disincentives, the next five years will see an unprecedented acceleration of electronic medicine in the U.S.
When I hand my one-year-old son something to eat, he spends a short time looking at it and a long time looking at me: Is this good? Is it tasty? […]
Robin Chin Roemer, assistant librarian at American University, has launched a new blog focused on library resources related to communication and the media. Given the strong focus among AU communication […]
Lessons from Sherlock Holmes fans: a new installment of the series is now available at Scientific American, here. I will not be posting any more series updates on this blog, but you […]
What was prehistoric human sex like? Most of us conjure “the hackneyed image of the caveman, dragging a dazed woman by her hair with one hand, a club in the other.” Psychologist Christopher Ryan says this image is mistaken in every detail.
Texas Governor Rick Perry’s August 6th prayer rally, The Response: A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis, has already garnered criticism for being a Christians-only affair that blurred […]
For its central and seemingly endless role in the history of the Western world, Rome more than earns the nickname of “Eternal City.” For centuries that history has sparked the […]
Now here’s a backhanded way to normalize a mayor covering up his deputy’s arrest for domestic violence: “Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s management style has its hallmarks: unwavering loyalty to aides […]
The School of Communication at American University has added two nationally recognized scholars studying Internet governance, technology, and politics. Professors DeNardis and Freelon (bios below) will be teaching in our […]
That’s the question posed by one of the lectures in the recently announced Capital Science Series sponsored by the Carnegie Institution for Science of Washington, DC. Details on this particular […]
Quick new post, but if you’re hankering for another live feed, check out the Nautilus Live feed – with the option to watch a split screen of all sorts of […]
Hurricane Irene is going down in the ‘top 10’ record books as more costly than anticipated only a week ago. It is hurricane season. Not exactly a surprise that a […]
Demography is an ever-evolving tool that can help us imagine and re-imagine the future. In this clip from his lecture for The Floating University, Professor Joel Cohen explains its significance.