Non-human animals are a lot smarter, and less “reflexive” or “instinct-based” than most people think. And maybe we humans are a bit more reflexive than we’d like to believe.
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What is it like to suffer face blindness, where you can’t recognize faces, even ones you’ve seen before and know well? Neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks explains his experience.
McVictimization teaches Americans to think that obesity is someone else’s fault. The truth: In the vast majority of cases, obesity is a preventable condition.
After two years of Obama’s foreign policy pragmatism toward Latin America, are Republicans in Congress threatening to turn back the clock to Cold War times?
Assange will presumably get Time magazine’s Person of the Year nod. Hitler and Stalin are past winners. It will be left for us to decide whether to file Assange under good or evil.
We have to stop kidding ourselves, Paul Krugman says. No one in Congress really cares about the deficit. Krugman’s right. As much as our politicians claim to care about the […]
Do science journalists have weird psychic powers? You might think so, given the near simultaneity of publications this fall on the touchy theme of studies that don’t really prove what they’re supposed to have proved.
So, the start of the week has now officially ranked on the busiest I have had in, well, years, so the posts have been more than a little sparse – […]
I went from the paintings, prints and poetry of John Lennon to the paintings and prints of William Tolliver in twenty four hours this weekend. Friday night, instead of parking […]
New research indicates that the disease starts in one area and spreads all over the brain. Could these findings inform efforts to develop a vaccine?
Every once in a while, scientists come up with an clever idea that is so novel and unexpected that it catches you by surprise. The idea by itself may not […]
Scientists always say that fusion is 20 years away, but this time the physicist says it’s for real.
We’ve previously looked at educational tools that help consumers make better choices when it comes to sustainability. Now, a new joint project between the Not For Sale Campaign and International […]
We are becoming used to Wikileaks reports of cables from US Diplomats being immediately accepted as factual statements, rather than opinion based on encounters. The latest being the leaked communiqués […]
The “Just Say No” campaign in the late 1980s increased the severity of sentencing for drug offenders in the U.S. Since that time, particularly since the mid-1990’s, incarceration rates have […]
Anyone who wishes to think well and feel well about the world should seek a way of thinking that is more capacious than Aristotle’s principle of non-contradiction, says Patrick Miller.
Increased scrutiny over investment banking deals may be creating more headaches than they are worth ultimately leading to separation between commercial and investment banking.
People born in winter months are at greater risk of neurological disorders, including schizophrenia. We’re now starting to understand the reasons behind this phenomenon.
The rich may seem to have it all, but the upper classes are not as good as the lower classes at reading the emotions of others, perhaps because the poor rely more on others to survive.
Studies show that when a decision’s outcome is uncertain, people act more risk averse than the situation truly merits. This could spell trouble for our uncertain economic times.
Many people want to make it clear that they are deeply, deeply concerned about the world’s problems, so a growing number of goods are designed to convey this message.
Currently a Boeing 747 gets 0.2 miles per gallon; a more aerodynamic plane would reduce drag as it cruises through the air and increase lift, which translates to better fuel economy.
With WikiLeaks’ next release targeting Bank of America, traders fear a subprime lending scandal will be exposed. The Daily Beast talks with someone who has read the leaked files.
Many in China and elsewhere believe the U.S. economy is too sick to be cured. Nobel Laureate Gary Becker disagrees but says recovery requires some unpalatable medicine.
In recent studies, subjects who were first shown comedy film clips were able to solve more puzzles faster than those who had been shown tragic or boring clips.
You can always count on the MoMA for two things: high-concept theme shows and high-concept theme shows that go in directions you didn’t expect. On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth […]
Having spent over seven years as a member of the cast of the NBC sitcom “The Office,” Rainn Wilson is known almost universally for his role as egomaniac Dwight Schrute. […]
Metropolis, Illinois, a tiny town with a grand name, is a distant echo of this area’s planned greatness
It is the perfect time for teenagers who love writing, and writers, to have an outlet for their creativity: they are, or soon will be, reading Salinger in class, and […]