Penn and Teller are not like other famous duos, says Penn Jillette, the larger and more talkative of the two magicians. Lennon and McCartney, Martin and Lewis, Jagger and Richards—these relationships were […]
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Tom Jones’ old friend Elvis Presley once told him “You have the voice of a black singer. Are there any black people where you come from?” To which this multi […]
Would it be cheaper to deal with climate change when it comes, rather than take preventative measures now? The Atlantic Wire considers the ideas of Al Gore, Paul Krugman and Ezra Klein.
“If everyone writes, there’ll be more bad novels. And if writing is thought sacred, they will become more boring.” The Telegraph doesn’t think the novel is dead, just boring.
Twenty-four years after the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, Scottish sheep are finally free of radioactive material brought on by heavy rain following the meltdown.
After dogs, horses may be man’s best friend, new research suggests. Based on their ability to understand subtle eye and body movements, horses can grasp human dispositions relatively well.
Cases of human irrationality are manifold, but Wired Science has found a new one: Do the outcomes of local sporting events influence voters during political elections? Yes, two studies say.
“Feeling down? Having a stimulating conversation might help.” Scientific American looks at a study suggesting that deep conversations are more satisfying that superficial ones.
Historically a bedrock of U.S. foreign policy, Israel is losing support from outside and inside the U.S. because of its recent aggressiveness, says Jonathan Freedland for The Guardian.
A recent Supreme Court ruling that denies a Christian college organization access to campus facilities violates the First Amendment, says Dennis Byrne at the Chicago Tribune.
“Repeal of the estate tax imposes significant costs on the taxpaying public and promotes concentrations of wealth that harm our democracy,” says a Boston College law professor.
Robert Wright says that the Internet is scattering our brains, sacrificing individual coherence for a superorganism where people are but single cells of a greater, electronic being.
Queen Elizabeth II is here, and today she spoke about peace. She said, in her speech at the United Nations, “the waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership […]
I’m nearly done filming a second season of “SCI-FI Science: Physics of the Impossible” on The Science Channel. In this exciting new series, I’ve identified 12 more familiar science-fiction movie, […]
As the Queen addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and pays her respects to those – including sixty three Britons – who lost their lives in the […]
Ten people were arrested in the suburbs of New York, Boston, and northern Virginia last week, accused of being part of an elaborate Russian spy ring. According to the New […]
There is plenty to be said for the strong Dutch team at the World Cup in South Africa. With players like Arjen Robben and Wesley Sneijder, they’re among the tournament’s […]
Fact: over half the world’s population lives in cities. Fact: all developed cities like New York, Tokyo, Singapore and London, are in a race to become “wired”. Fact: the most […]
July 1st marked the 100th day since Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, a major part of the Obama administration’s health care overhaul. The same day, the administration unveiled a […]
Articles at The Times (of London) now sit behind a paywall: two bucks a day or four bucks a week; The New York Times is building a paywall as you […]
Online dating is “an incredibly unsatisfying experience,” says Duke behavioral economics professor Dan Ariely, the author of “Predictably Irrational.” In fact, his research has found that each date you set […]
We’ve covered variousdesignsolutions for the vision-impaired. But what about the hearing-impaired? While the sight is visual in nature and thus more organically linked to design, can the auditory sense be […]
“Corruption has marred every aspect of Somali society,” says Afyare Abdi Elmi, a professor of International Affairs. It is, he says, the most corrupt country in the world.
Personalities are typically thought to be genetically determined; not so, says the New Scientist: “We may learn our personalities, and adjust them to situations we find ourselves in over time.”
“Scientists are trying to regulate the weather with ambitious experiments that may even tackle global warming. Is this a great step forward?” The Independent looks at the strangest of these ideas.
The author of a new book on race begins with a controversial hypotheses: it was desegregation that destroyed thriving black schools and created a culture of underperformance.
“New research finds that attractive people in the business world or academia may be at a disadvantage when they’re evaluated by a member of the same sex.” More at Miller-McCune.
The language police at Salon lament the rise of “No problem” over “Thank you” because, they say, the former shrugs off bonds created by social interaction instead of affirming them.
Jeffrey Wasserstrom gives five reasons why we need not fear the rise of China. Among them: “Some of the really scary things about China have U.S. parallels,” such as environmental disregard, he says.