In many areas of the increasingly networked global economy the middleman is more in demand than ever.
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Based on current discovery rates, we will have discovered thousands of exoplanets by 2020. But how can we concentrate on habitable ones? One astrobiologist proposes a unique solution.
The abundance of oil in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, might fill state and private coffers but will the profit come at the expense of sustainable environmental policies?
Having a space vehicle capable of launching humans into orbit, and beyond, remains the gold standard among the international space community. For the moment, only Russia has that.
To most journalists, a good story is defined in large measure by how much attention it will get. A story that makes page one, or leads the newscast, is […]
Nobody’s so politically correct as to be offended by Happy Thanksgiving. From a merely historical point of view, maybe we should be more sensitive.
The Amwell Township of western Pennsylvania sits on one of the world’s largest natural gas reserves. But are the political benefits of mining natural gas worth the human costs?
Ahead of a U.N. climate conference, another large cache of emails stolen from climate scientists has been published. Where does such fervent doubt over climate change come from?
I’m eager to join in the “Which five books on a desert island?” game suggested by Big Think editor Dan Honan in a recent post. As a blogger, would-be critic, […]
While America has always led the world in supporting new entrepreneurs and launching innovative new companies, the democratization of the Internet over the past decade means that we are all […]
I love Rockwell’s rendering of the Thanksgiving feast. Three generations circle the food—a nuclear family more rarely seen today in person, but still existing in our hearts and minds in modern permutations.
As promised earlier, here’s a full wrap-up of my weekend attending Skepticon IV in Springfield, Missouri. I really have to give tons of credit to the organizers, who not only […]
A couple of months ago, physicists at CERN, Switzerland, claimed they had found a fatal flaw in Einstein’s theory of relativity. Their findings immediately lit up the Internet with activity, […]
Last year Americans spent more money during Black Friday Weekend than the GDP of North Korea. Larry Summers argues America needs to save, while other countries, like China, need to spend, in order to increase global prosperity.
The crowd surges around you, lurching forward in one overpowering swell. There’s panting and shoving, sharp elbows and raised voices, clawing and tearing, frenzied looks and frazzled nerves. Light blaring […]
Our power to manipulate our brains and genes is increasing dramatically – and it raises serious ethical questions.
I was going to update my previous post, but this got long, so I’m spinning it off into a separate post. Read the other one first if you need more […]
Have you ever poked around in the “People You May Know” box in Facebook? For the first few score people, it’s a pleasure. Click: A person I forgot I knew. […]
Stanford’s experiment in offering its three most popular computer science classes to the public for free online has seen a huge take-up, with 200,000 people enrolled.
Patricia Milligan discusses the conflict between a generation that has carved out a niche and is intent on securing it and a generation that’s burning for a shot. The give-and-take between the two is global in scale.
The emotional rollercoaster ride that lies behind they hype of being a high tech start-up founder is seldom talked about. Success, not sadness, sells, but it’s not the whole story.
Until now, the concept of info-vision–streaming information across a person’s field of view– was science fiction, but scientists have developed a prototype lens promising the real thing.
Researchers from the University of Milan and Facebook have found that the average number of acquaintances separating any two people in the world is now not six but 4.74.
Israel has established itself as a hi-tech hub thanks largely to some government jump-start funding, but compulsory military service and Jewish immigration have also been key.
“Oops.” We haven’t even reached the peak of the 2012 election campaign and already two leading presidential candidates – Rick Perry and Herman Cain – have experienced sensational lapses on […]
Finding maps that are sufficiently strange and beautiful is only half the joy of making this blog; the other is writing up the story to go along with them. But […]
I’m back! As you may know, I’ve spent the last three days in Springfield, Missouri, having a blast at Skepticon IV. The convention was a weekend of great talks that […]
It’s the video that everyone seems to be talking about, or at least a lot of people on Youtube. This video depicts a University of California, Davis police officer pepper-spraying […]
“We are children when we talk about the cosmic scale of energies throughout the entire universe,” says theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. But with a little (okay, a lot) of human ingenuity, we may one day have the ability to harness the energy of the stars.
Do holiday sales make your palms sweat with anticipation? That’s because they’re designed to. “There’s a very, very deep art and science to pricing,” says Lee Eisenberg, author of Shoptimism. Watch as he explains the tricks of the trade and how you can avoid them.