One of my favorite outdated slang phrases is “drop a dime,” which alludes to the days when a phone call still cost 10 cents and means to tell the truth […]
All Articles
V.S. Naipaul is without question or controversy one of the finest living writers. Yet the controversy surrounding his recent interview with the Royal Geographic Society, in which he effectively takes […]
Fertility clinics can now identify and prevent the implantation of embryos with known genetic defects. For the first time we have the technical ability to determine whether or not certain babies will be born and what characteristics they’ll be born with.
Molecular Biologist Lee Silver acknowledges that there are special bioethical considerations that come into play for those working on biotech—but insists that much of the opposition to the field is […]
It has been a bad 10 years for the economy. As I’ve written before, the last decade was, economically, a lost decade. As this graph from Ezra Klein shows, there […]
The news continues to come fast and furious out of Yemen, much of it just rumors – but still it comes. Even as someone who spends a good deal of […]
Americans waste 14% of all the food we buy, and rote adherence to “use-by” dates is part of the problem, explains an Iowa food scientist: But, it turns out, in […]
A lot of volcanoes produce 3-km ash plumes on the regular basis. Right now, there are probably two or three volcanoes in Kamchatka or Indonesia alone that are generating plumes of […]
This week, the USDA unveiled a new icon for healthy eating, MyPlate, a successor to the Food Pyramid and MyPyramid. There’s a lot to like about the new visual. The […]
The news is coming fast and furious out of Sanaa. Not much is known for certain and it will likely be a while before we have all the details, but […]
“I don’t know enough about the inner workings of (The New York Times) to offer definitive judgments, but from the outside it looks like Keller did a pretty good job.”
Fellow billionaires Sir Richard Branson and Ted Turner on philanthropy and their global health initiatives. Branson’s advice: First achieve success then make a difference.
When CEOs forgo a fat salary in exchange for equity, they align their wealth with the company’s success. But a new study suggests it’s often just a PR ploy.
The Global Commission on Drug Policy has concluded that, when it comes to drugs, ‘just say no’ policies for youth are a complete failure. Perhaps we’ll now do the same […]
Female underrepresentation at executive level in government and business is a fact. Should women take responsiblity for it? A reflection on Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s views.
Innovation, along with increasing existing business, now outranks all other means of potential expansion, including new markets, mergers and acquisitions, and joint ventures.
In researching Groupon’s IPO for the earlier post, I tried to think about which markets are being affected by Groupon. The biggest is almost certainly Yellow Pages ($26Bn worldwide) — […]
Going public now allows Groupon to establish dominance against their competitors. They can encourage a perception from the public markets that LivingSocial et. al. are “Groupon Clones.”
1. I was glad to learn from BIG THINKER Daniel that Walmart has become a catalyst for change on the Green or environmental front. That’s good news, because what that corporation’s brains […]
Over the last few weeks, the Dieng Volcanic Complex (also known as the Dieng Plateau) in Indonesia has been increasingly showing signs of potential eruptive activity. The complex began experiencing […]
The New York Times CEO whisperer Adam Bryant advocates fearlessness as a virtue that will help people make decisions both great and small, positively impacting both their careers and daily lives.
Researchers in Germany have achieved the fastest-ever data transmission on a single laser beam, and it just might carry your high-definition 3-D streaming movies of the future.
Apple Inc. has reached deals with major music companies to help launch an online storage service called iCloud. Steve Jobs is expected to unveil the online listening platform next week.
Dear educator, if you were on Twitter yesterday, you might have found: this awesome reflection about working with a teacher on technology integration; or these resources about ‘learning styles’ and […]
A key energy storage technology for the future, called the flywheel, allows for frequency regulation without wasting extra fuel. Its implementation is a big step toward a smart energy grid.
What constraints govern the physical process of computing? Is a minimum amount of energy required per logic step? There seems to be no minimum, but some other questions are open.
In a bid to enable computers to learn faster, defense company Lockheed Martin has bought a system that uses quantum mechanics to process digital data. At $10 million, it is the first sale of its kind.
“Scandinavian Pain” burns crimson in the night in one photo by Ragnar Kjartansson featured in the new exhibition North by New York: New Nordic Art in celebration of the centenary […]
As much as the car chieftains of Detroit try to fight it, America is slowly but surely turning away from the concept of car ownership. Instead, hundreds of thousands of […]
Aron Cramer, CEO of Business for Social Responsibility, explains how Walmart has used its market power to become an agent of change and an industry leader in what he calls “sustainable excellence.”