How badly could things have gone during Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington? How much room was there for actual negotiation?
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Many apologies for the delay in postings, other work has gotten in the way, but I promise to be better in the future. It has been an incredibly busy few […]
One company is taking the familiar childhood concept of a bake sale and turning it into a social enterprise for the grown-up world.
It can’t have been good news for Piers Morgan that in the week CNN chose to debut his new show ‘Piers Morgan Tonight’, another Brit, comedian Ricky Gervais tanked horribly […]
Will Saletan accuses Apple CEO Steve Jobs of “gaming the system” to get a liver transplant: Jobs lives in Northern California, but he got his liver in Tennessee. Why? Different […]
Over on Jon Frimann’s Iceland Volcano and Earthquake Blog, there has been a lot of talk about the activity under Vatnajökull (see map below), the largest glacier on Iceland and […]
Great art can sometimes be like a magnet—attracting hordes of admirers. The Gauguin: Maker of Myth exhibition that recently closed at the Tate Modern in London, England, drew more than […]
The fact that many sun sign horoscopes are based on badly outdated information is troubling to many people, but what may be even more disturbing is astrology’s close similarity to racism.
Lately, mainstream scientists have been inching toward similar conclusions about the positive therapeutic potential of hallucinogenic drugs, says Annie Murphy.
Your friends might seem based on shared interests and emotional compatibility. But there might be something genetic going on—and it’s related to how much you drink.
Truly nuanced, self-aware social discussion may still be in the future but among educated Chinese the government’s baldest self-contradictions no longer pass unremarked.
A few billion dollars in private foundation money, strategically invested every year for a decade, has sufficed to sustain a crusade for a set of mostly ill-conceived reforms.
What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? This question, posed by psychologist Steven Pinker, has garnered over 150 responses at Edge.org.
They may be getting more graphic, says Harriet Walker, but sex scenes in the movies are no more true to life than they ever were—and no less uncomfortable to watch.
If the F.D.A. deems saccharin safe enough for coffee, then the E.P.A. should not treat it as hazardous waste, writes President Barack Obama at The Wall Street Journal.
Perhaps happiness is a bit like self-esteem: You have to work for both. You can’t get an infusion of either one from a therapist, says Dr. Richard Friedman.
MP3s aren’t free and Piracy is, as of this moment and for want of a better word, theft. Is there any other crime people are so completely and disarmingly blasé about committing?
So, in the wake of the boring–yet annoying–Golden Globes, I’ve been asked what movies of last year I’d recommend that the foreign correspondents slighted. Let me say, to begin with, […]
Despite the important role of the arts in enabling public expression, learning, and participation relative to science, there is an unfortunate tendency to think about the relationship in terms of […]
As presented by Life Magazine to its anxious readership in 1942.
There is not a single gene that triggers autism, but more likely dozens of genes that enhance the risk of autism. On the other hand, researchers have found that certain environmental variables, like air pollution, may also play a small role.
Since you’re reading it on the Internet—in a blog, no less—it just might be. This week Big Think sits down with journalist Nicholas Carr, author of the infamous 2008 Atlantic […]
So, I said that I was going to try to make MVP #31 a little harder than some of the last few Mystery Volcano Photos, and I was right. In […]
Researchers at Kyoto University claim they will be able to clone a baby mammoth from the DNA of a 10,000-year-old woolly mammoth. The time frame: 5 to 6 years.
If sex workers are effectively used to manipulate economic decision-makers then, just like other forms of corruption, this will lead to poor economic outcomes.
Look for the answer to MVP #31 later today, but for now, I have a brief update on Bulusan in the Philippines. We ended 2010 with the restive volcano producing […]
Sex educator Jessi Fischer on why and how we vilify male sexuality: “The falsehood that men are brutes who can’t control their sex drive is harmful to everyone.”
Sales of Glock semi-automatic guns are skyrocketing in the wake of Tucson. The growing piles of bodies is real evidence of growing extremist activity. What could be plainer or starker?
A study has found an unexpected sex difference in the effects of caffeine consumption on performance under stress. Men fared worse and women better.
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator tells Spiegel about the dangers of waging cyber warfare against Iran’s nuclear facilities and the West’s false expectations for upcoming talks.