The complexity of our 21st century problems has not just led to a postponement in peak creativity. It has also lessened the importance of the individual.
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What kind of value can living well have? The analogy between art and life has often been drawn and as often ridiculed. We should live our lives, the Romantics said, as a work of art.
This semester I am teaching an interdisciplinary course on “Science, the Environment, and the Media.” The 25 combined undergraduate and graduate students in the course have split into project teams […]
Presidents generally cover a lot of ground in their State of the Union addresses. But they really can only sound one theme—or call on the country to do one thing—without […]
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of what astronomers believe may be the oldest galaxy ever seen—over 13 billion years old!
A cognitive scientist friend of mine made a good point the other day about Amy Chua’s assertion that “nothing is fun until you’re good at it.” It is, he said […]
During the Vietnam War, the US dropped an average one B-52 bomb load every 8 minutes, 24/7, for a total of 2 million tons of ordnance, making Laos the most […]
There was so much pre-speech talk about last night’s State of the Union address that President Obama’s quip “so I guess I don’t have to give it now” to Secretary […]
The powers that be are currently convening at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. But is this high-profile meeting of minds really the best setting for predicting and responding to the world’s future crises? Or does it fall prey to the same biases that triggered the recent recession in the first place?
Some lessons in media literacy are more painful than others. Listen up, kids. Despite what you read in the papers, you cannot get high on bath salts or plant food. […]
So the headline is a bit extreme to get your attention. But let me share with you my favorite conservative response to our president’s challenging and unevenly interesting speech last […]
Around the globe in Japan, Kirishima, a volcano on the southern island of Kyushu, has started erupting vigorously. I haven’t been able to find many reports, but the Tokyo VAAC […]
Get a front row seat to what the future holds by tuning into a LIVE webcast called “Farsight 2011: Beyond the Search Box” on February 1 from 10am to 2pm PST on BigThink.com
Vladimir Nabokov, popular author and self-taught expert on butterflies, once put forth a theory of evolution for the Polyommatus blues butterfly. Today, his theory is getting some attention.
The girlie-girl culture being marketed to little girls is less innocent than it might seem, and can have negative consequences for girls’ psychological, social and physical development.
The Enlightenment left us with few resources for thinking about what the good life really is, and how we should live it, because the focus was on winning individuals their freedom.
Inspired by Tunisia, Egyptians began their protests online and then added hard tactics on the ground in their effort to bring down a crushingly effective police state.
Once upon a time, films would open, close, appear on video, then vanish. Now with dozens of television channels to fill and rentals going postal, some films never go away.
U.S. Supreme Court justices have ruled that corporations are “artificial persons”; the Spanish Parliament ruled that great apes are “legal persons.” So just what is a person these days?
What people are saying to each other is important, but how they are saying it may be even more telling. A new study finds that people who speak in similar styles are more compatible.
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s nearly two-year examination of the 2008 crisis lays blame on two presidential administrations, regulatory agencies and big players on Wall Street.
Professor of the “social studies of science” at M.I.T., Sherry Turkle summarizes her new view with eloquence: “We expect more from technology and less from each other.”
If there was a central theme to the president’s remarks, it was innovation. He called for more investment in education, research, science and clean energy.
[IMPT] This post is likely to offend a few people – I decided to post it anyway. If you’d like to tell me your opinion about this article? Tweet me […]
More than even faith in the market, perhaps our most widely shared belief as Americans is our deep, almost fundamentalist commitment to the ideal of science and innovation as strengthening […]
The business world is full of what can be most kindly called “empty suits”—individuals who look the part but hollowly fulfill positions of power. In the art world, the empty […]
We don’t know about you, but we’re a little tired of conventional web searches. If you want to search anything (say Egypt), Google obediently proffers a number of sites starting […]
The global recession pushed climate change action toward the bottom of the geopolitical agenda. Yet President Obama bucked conventional wisdom Tuesday night by making clean energy technology a centerpiece of his State of the Union Address.
Where is the geographical midpoint of Europe? The question is straightforward enough, but the answer isn’t.
Autism sufferers unquestionably have feelings. It’s processing them—and reading others’—that they struggle with.