New drilling techniques have driven down the price tag of harvesting natural gas from shale—and set the stage for shale gas to become what will be the game-changing resource of the decade.
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Researchers have determined that the protein long suspected of being the “master switch” allowing brains to operate does indeed have that function.
“What constitutes status and sex appeal in the land of the eternally wireless?” Ellen Ruppel Shell thinks it may be the ability to take time away from technology-enabled distractions.
We’ve spent plenty of time discussing how the Internet is changing the way we read, the way we communicate, and the way we fall in love. But how is the Internet changing the way we eat?
“Lawmakers need to demand that regulators show a real commitment to policing the banking and mortgage industries,” writes Michael W. Hudson.
Emily Bazelon thinks that the youth and judicial inexperience of Elena Kagan, President Obama’s selection to replace Justice Stevens on the Supreme Court, make her a good choice for the job.
Until the Pakistani military truly takes on a more holistic view of the country’s national interests, the country will continue to be a hotbed of terrorism, writes Fareed Zakaria.
For Obama to turn Gulf oil spill crisis into an opportunity, John Heilemann thinks he may have to embrace the expansion of nuclear energy.
“Globish” is a highly simplified form of English, without grammar or structure—but perfectly comprehensible. Robert McCrum writes that it is the language that unites us.
“Fake medical treatment can work amazingly well,” writes Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow. Members of the medical community are increasingly asking whether they should put placebo treatments to work.
Nobody likes a showoff, China, and now that you’re rising like the sea level during a tsunami, the world’s nations are trying to put you down. Will the world ever […]
Testing for creativity, and its corresponding physical attributes in the brain, requires defining the term, but creativity is not so easily broken down.
The Journal of Cosmology has gathered responses from the scientific community to Stephen Hawking’s warning about colonial aliens—one biologist even wrote a limerick.
“You can fight fire with fire,” says Steve Chapman at the Chicago Tribune who is bothered by an overly reactive American culture, “As a rule, though, it’s better to use water.”
A new study shows that just five minutes in a natural, green environment—rather than an urban one—can improve our mood and self-esteem.
A new U.N. report says that one in three plant and animal species face extinction given the rate of human production and consumption.
Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, thinks the influence of pharmaceutical companies has grown too large in our academic institutions.
Melting ice caps in the Arctic are creating new trade routes and exposing untouched natural resources, but just who is filling the legal and political vacuum of the North?
The Guardian reports that unaccountable Middle Eastern governments limit freedom of the press by creating threats real and imaginary to justify their habit of censorship.
Ian Bremmer says the financial crisis is putting the brakes on the expansion of free-markets and accelerating the development of “state capitalism”.
Despite the TV industry’s efforts to push 3-D televisions, the technology may be best suited to cinemas where people can devote their full attention to the screen, writes the Economist.
Although federal law prohibits discrimination in the workplace on the basis of race, national origin, age, sex, and disability, there are no federal laws protecting people from discrimination on the […]
It looks like the mainstream media has finally decided to quit ignoring the rancid stench of race based hatred that fuels a lot of the anger behind the Tea Party […]
David Brooks’s meditation on “dual-conscious” thinking in yesterday’s Times is an excellent piece leading into Mother’s Day tomorrow. Mothers are natural dual-thinkers; it is a mother’s work, perhaps uniquely, to […]
Psychology Today comments on a survey finding that one in ten people think it appropriate to interrupt sex to send a text message. Is nothing sacred?
Professors Gary Becker and Richard Posner at the University of Chicago discuss the benefits and risks of financial speculation in a shaky economy.
Sharon Lerner at The Nation appreciates Mother’s Day but laments the illusion that women’s generosity is infinite; generosity without support—real support—is unsustainable.
The “special relationship” between the U.S. and the U.K. is likely to change because Britain has less than ever to offer America as David Cameron seeks to be a domestic policy Prime Minister.
“Rigor leads to rigor mortis,” says MIT’s Sanjoy Mahajan who teaches his students to use common sense and best guessing to arrive at practical solutions problems great and small.
The answer to religious extremism cannot be secularism because familial and cultural roots run too deep in the Middle East, writes Rima Merhi. A more inclusive religious education is needed.