Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s remarks last week were in keeping with his ongoing effort to restructure the armed forces and create what he has called a “truly 21st century” military.
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The idea of a coming Singularity refers to a point in time of radical exponential progress, beyond which our minds can’t imagine—the technological counterpart to an event horizon in a black hole.
A little over a week ago I wrote a post on what I saw as the tribal jockeying that was taking place against the backdrop of the protests in Yemen. […]
AS the United Nations Security Council meets in New York, Secretary General Ban ki moon is calling for “decisive” action to be taken against the Libyan regime. The UN Secretary […]
Putting on a bright face at work could leave you feeling miserable. Workers who fake a smile to keep their customers and colleagues happy could be making themselves depressed.
Rolling Stone magazine caused turmoil in the U.S. military this week reporting that a commander in Afghanistan ordered a “psychological operations” team to manipulate U.S. senators.
The notion that science and religion are at war is one of the great dogmas of the present age. However, the views of many scientists turn out to be less rigidly doctrinaire than suspected.
A new book looking back on The Feminine Mystique explains why Betty Friedan might have paved the way for equal marriages by blowing the roof off male-dominated couplings.
We all know that women like funny guys but empirical evidence for this phenomenon has been sorely lacking. Fortunately, a recent study tests whether humor helps men pick up women.
Defense Secretary Gates bluntly told an audience of West Point cadets on Friday that it would be unwise for the United States to ever fight another war like Iraq or Afghanistan.
Starting your own business often means going it alone on health insurance—a risky prospect for any individual, let alone a family. Reform will encourage entrepreneurs, says Ezra Klein.
A new study from the University of California has found that younger Internet users become more socially engaged in the real world, not just online, thanks to their use of social media.
Lawrence Principe of Johns Hopkins University wants to rehabilitate alchemy. He believes that most alchemists were respectable knowledge seekers working with well constructed theories.
The security afforded by having a government job is worth approximately a pay increase of 15%, says Art Carden. This should inform the debate over collective bargaining in Madison.
LGBT advocate Tim McCarthy argues the cause of same-sex marriage is not the best issue strategically for the LGBT community.
We’ve finally made it to the weekend, so I thought I’d leave you with a shiny new image from the NASA Earth Observatory folks. The new ASTER image (below) captured […]
Heavy gun fire has been heard raking the streets of Tripoli, as Libyan dictator Colonel Gadaffi makes a defiant stand. There can be no doubt now that he will stop at absolutely nothing to hang on to power. What, if anything, should the international community be doing to help?
Are people naturally good or evil? How much of our mental life is unconscious? Are our desires hard-wired by evolution? On the evening of Monday, March 21st, renowned psychologist and […]
Two high-ranking ministers made headlines this week by falling out of line with the governments they represent. They are U.S. Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, and Libya’s Ambassador to the U.S., Ali Ojli.
Avenues: The World School, a exclusive school set to open in 2012 in New York City, will be one of the most forward-looking and global schools on the planet. But will this model fix America’s educational system or just exacerbate inequalities?
It never ceases to amaze me how the media just loves to find bad in the good (or at least the interesting). I’ve seen a number of article or blog […]
When combat veterans tell their battle tales, the stories often are laced with themes of heroism, sacrifice and loyalty. But guilt also takes a heavy mental toll.
‘Will Egypt’s revolution spark a Domino Effect?’. Almost anywhere one looks for analysis of events, a metaphor stares back. But metaphors are no substitute for the generation of ideas.
Under pressure to improve its search results, Google has announced a “big algorithmic improvement” that, unlike other changes, could be noticeable to its users.
The ultradense core of an exploded star contains superfluids, a strange form of superconducting matter which exhibits remarkable properties such as climbing upwards.
Except for the fear of cancer, U.S. adults most fear getting Alzheimer’s disease, but few make preparations for the onset of the disease, a survey indicates.
Scientists in the United States have found newborn mice can re-grow their own hearts. There’s no reason to believe that the same window would not exist in the human heart.
Sailors used to struggle with it but migratory sea turtles have now proved capable of sensing longitude, using almost imperceptible gradients in Earth’s magnetic field.
The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in “psychological operations” to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war.