If you only read one piece about Scientology, make it Lawrence Wright’s in this week’s New Yorker. Wright’s book The Looming Towertold the story of how we arrived at 9/11, […]
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After saying something really controversial like Tea Partiers aren’t Fascists, I thought it safer to return to a relatively trans-partisan commentary on a good movie. This is part of my […]
Autism science is making great strides, but it may never yield a single cure because autism is likely not one disorder but many.
How the divide in wealth between the rich and the poor is being maintained through marriage.
Humans value love and friendship that aren’t just forged by family ties or sexual attraction. Now researchers have determined that such friendships exist among some animals.
In a recent study, preference for idea generation was higher among ADHD participants, whereas preference for problem clarification was greater among non-ADHD participants.
Public libraries could be taken over by community and voluntary groups, who might actually run them more appropriately for local needs. And they might bring in some fresh ideas.
Has social psychology become a community that is bound together by liberal values and then blind to any ideas or findings that threaten our sacred values? Yes, says Jonathan Haidt.
Asking thousands of strangers if those jeans look good on you might not have seemed possible only a few short years ago, but now it’s only an app download away.
After decades of careful observation, scientists have figured out that there are a few things we do better when we’re sleeping than when we’re awake. Dealing with stress is one.
Part way through a revolution, only one thing seemed certain in Egypt: there is no longer an Arab exception to the worldwide desire for dignity, human rights, and possibly democracy.
Can a computer be “more human” than a human? The march of technology isn’t just changing how we live, it’s raising new questions about what it means to be human.
It is a dirty little secret that even great companies have to fire the people who do not work out. It does not seem gracious or nice. But that can leave a false impression.
In embracing a victims-and-villains explanation of the recession, Americans are missing important lessons about the future of the U.S. economy, says Robert Samuelson.
The continental game of bumper cars known as plate tectonics is part of a global recycling system crucial to maintaining long-term temperature constancy—and giving rise to life.
Last week Seth Mnookin, author of the Panic Virus, kicked off the inaugural event in the new Science in Society Film and Lecture series at American University, sponsored by the […]
The massive droughts in China underscore the fact that we’re simply running out of the freshwater needed to sustain the earth’s nearly 7 billion people. How can we fix this problem?
Theoretically, there could be people and planets made out of antimatter rather than matter, but where are they?
With federal judges retiring at the rate of one a week—and being replaced nowhere near that fast—101 of the 854 seats on district and circuit courts are currently vacant. Can democrats and republicans make nice and fill this gap?
As I read the news today of an alleged US drone crashing and members of AQAP making off with the wreckage, I was reminded of the part in Lawrence Wright’s […]
As WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appears in court in London today in connection with sexual assault charges, Nobel prize-winning economist Michael Spence discusses the real costs that WikiLeaks could inflict on society.
“My beard points to heaven, and I feel the nape of my neck on my hump,” Michelangelo wrote in a poem about his experience painting the ceiling of the Sistine […]
While there are currently two dozen apps on the market designed to help people quit smoking, a new study says none of this software is likely to do the job.
Some news for today: Taiwan: Most people don’t realize that the island of Taiwan has potentially active volcanoes. One such volcanic center is the Datun (as known as Tatun) Group, […]
Physics are nothing but the laws of harmonies on a string, and the universe is a symphony.
My fellow BIG THINK blogger, Mark Seddon, has written that Glenn Beck is “Goebbels” or a Fascist or Nazi rousing the masses up in a dangerous, murderous way. Palin and the Tea […]
Though they may not admit it explicitly, most string theorists have given up on the idea of a Unified Theory of Everything.
Are the revelations promised by string theory’s quest for the “Theory of Everything” leading physics in the wrong direction?