Recycling doesn’t come for free. It costs millions to pickup, sort and process all those plastic bottles, aluminum cans and cardboard pizza boxes we discard.
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Good brand marketing is about getting the right emotional response from your target audience. You can get people to buy a product in many ways, but to get them to […]
2010 was a great year for art publishing, with many presses producing high quality works not only in terms of reproducing great art, but also in publishing important thinkers on […]
“Wow, how did they do that?” We were watching Tron: The Legacyin 3-D, and our friend was marveling at how 61 year-old Jeff Bridges appeared as young as a man […]
What President Obama and my lazy news media don’t seem to remember, or don’t want to address today, is something Jeff Lurie said back when he hired Vick: “I needed […]
Do we pay top executives too little? That, as Tyler Cowen points out, is the question raised by a recent paper by Bang Dang Nguyen and Kaspar Meisner Nielsen. The […]
As the year draws to a close, it’s time again to take a look back at some videos that really struck a chord with our audience this year. A glance […]
Because of the wave nature of matter, there is a finite possibility—albeit a minuscule one—that you could go to bed on Earth and wake up the next morning on Mars.
Breaking the analog world into zeros and ones results in some loss of information, but it allows for an infinite number of exact replications.
The World Wide Web turned 20 this month. To mark the occasion, its creator and protector, Tim Berners-Lee (who invented it so that particle physicists from CERN—the current home of […]
People who watch funny videos on the Internet may be taking advantage of the latest psychological science—putting themselves in a good mood so they can think more creatively.
What would it look like if all the conservatives formed a “utopia” in Texas, say, and broke away from the United States? Social safety nets would be the first thing to go, says Marc Adler.
Despite what optimists within the White House may believe, the odds are not good that Obama will repeat 1996, when Bill Clinton made a startling political comeback.
An Australian-based firm’s $3.9 billion bid for a coal mine in Mozambique says much about its ambitions and the battle that giant mining firms will face in securing Africa’s resources.
In the next five years, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the United States will have to spend more than one trillion dollars simply to sustain what we already have.
A clothing company has begun marketing a pair of cargo pants with solar panels sewn into its pockets. The panels are designed to charge personal electronic devices.
How can the government regulate the neutrality of the Internet? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Stephan Kinsella says government regulation of the Internet will stifle business.
The idea of a ‘space elevator’ has been around since the late 1800s. Until now, there wasn’t a material strong enough to build it. Then carbon nanotubes stepped in.
A new law overhauls the way the federal government supports private-sector R&D, and one of the main ways the government hopes to support R&D is with prizes. Lots of prizes.
Couples who avoid sex before marriage end up having happier, more stable relationships and a better time in bed, according to psychologists. Should sex wait until one’s wedding night?
Do you have to be religious to see a face in burnt toast? Probably not, but believers are more likely to attribute such a face to Jesus (1). Believer in […]
Technology goliath IBM just released its top five predictions for the next five years. We agree with all of their sensible forecasts — with some additional thoughts. 1. Yes, You Too Can Be […]
Let me recommend to you this fine review of this season’s best movie. Once again, I think the Coen brothers more than flirt with nihilism. The murderous violence of the film […]
Designer Kaylene Kau has produced a highly functional, sleek prosthetic arm inspired by the tentacle of an octopus.
So he will write a book, even if he does not want to write a book. “I don’t want to write this book, but I have to,” Assange said, and […]
Did Albert Einstein believe in God? Comfortable using the term, he famously said, “God does not play dice,” to express his misgivings about the randomness of quantum mechanics.
Extending unemployment benefits and the Bush tax cuts are a good first step to rewriting America’s tax code, says Nobel Laureate Gary Becker, who favors a flat consumption tax.
Why have new jobs been so hard to come by? One view blames cyclical economic factors but another says there is a mismatch between the skills people have and the jobs available.
Suicide bombers have much to teach. The most remarkable fact is that suicide bombing is a relatively recent historic development, unknown in Islamic societies until the 1980s.
How to keep hope alive? Without a constructive answer to toxic anger and immobilizing guilt, we seem doomed to despair about chances for renewal. One answer is forgiveness.