Because cancerous cells are worse at defending against viruses than healthy cells, medical scientists across the country are working to modify viruses to specifically target cancer.
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Using commercial semiconductor technology, scientists have found a more accurate way to measure nanopores, which may allow for far cheaper DNA sequencing in the years ahead.
New research suggests that abnormally quick prenatal brain growth is a biological marker of autism. Scientists have traced the growth back to gene expression, suggesting possible treatments.
For nearly 70 years, the World Bank has been an institution led by bankers, economists, technocrats and politicians – until now. Obama’s inspired choice of Jim Yong Kim, president of […]
Call me a proud alum. If you haven’t yet heard of Jim Yong Kim, the Dartmouth College president nominated by Obama today to head the World Bank, then welcome to […]
As any parent of a distractible seven-year-old knows, the neural circuits involved in self-control are some of the latest-developing parts of the brain. This important set of abilities is worth the wait, though—as well as some parental effort. Parents can accelerate the development of self-control by encouraging their children to pursue goals that are challenging but not impossible, a moving target that depends on the child’s age and individual abilities.
My research for Dirty Minds: How Our Brains Influence, Love, Sex, and Relationships wasn’t all orgasms in brain scanners. As I sifted through the scientific literature on love and sex, what I thought was a discussion about romance kept circling back around to decision-making.
What is the Big Idea? Belachew Girma was once a school teacher, store owner and hotel owner. It seemed like he had it all. But after a series of bad […]
Free will has long been a fraught concept among philosophers and theologians. Now neuroscience is entering the fray. For centuries, the idea that we are the authors of our own […]
Clay Johnson, author of The Information Diet and co-founder of Blue State Digital, the firm that built and managed Barack Obama’s online campaign for the presidency in 2008, argues that there’s no such […]
In his latest book The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind and Brain from Vienna 1900 to the Present, Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel talks […]
Ever find yourself dozing off during a lecture or seminar? Dread walking through those classroom doors because you know exactly what’s on the other side? Just the sight of a […]
In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg takes an unflinching look at the science of habit, and offers concrete strategies for transforming harmful habits into beneficial ones.
The amount of medical information we have is doubling every five years. By using advanced computers like Watson, doctors can process that data into clinical cancer treatments.
Brain imaging studies show that every time we learn a new task, we’re changing our brain by expanding our neural network.
What is the Big Idea? It’s late May and the year is 1989. Among the chaos in Tiananmen Square is 20-year-old David Tian, who is one of millions bravely chanting […]
What is the Big Idea? Earlier this month, 20-year-old student Tsering Kyi emerged from a public restroom at a produce market in Tibet, soaked in gasoline and with a defiant […]
The video below ought to put a definitive end to the No Sex versus Bad Sex debate. Slovakian wildlife photographer Adrián Skippy Purkart captured a queen ant being ravaged by a […]
A few years ago I gave a sermon at my (very liberal) church asking the question: “What determines the limit to our tolerance?” After the service, one member of the […]
A survey of over 1,200 European business executives yielded five general personality types which differ according to their role in the innovation process. Which do you best fit?
You can use the same method that generated the idea for Twitter to create a new idea for your business. It just takes a little brainstorming and a few important ground rules.
While working at a start up may have more cultural caché, getting a job at a corporation provides opportunities for leadership and innovation that are already scaled.
Quick. Grab a pencil. Some crayons. A notepad. Wrap your brain around this Friday’s Big Enigma from Ivan Moscovitch’s The Big Book of Brain Games. Share a photo of your solution in […]
In order to avoid destructive consequences, people must have reasonable opportunities to satisfy their desire for purity. Many horrors have been committed from fear of contamination. What else is “ethnic […]
A series of studies suggest that cognitive and cultural diversity within a group of entrepreneurs is more successful than a monoculture of aggressive intelligence.
In a new book, author Vijay Vaitheeswaran argues that innovation will occur differently than in the past. We need to harness the power of democratizing Internet technologies, he says.
A Q&A With Christian Wiman, Translator of Stolen Air When Osip Mandelstam died at age 47 in a Siberian work camp under the Stalin regime, he became one of twentieth-century […]
My latest column has been posted on AlterNet, How Religion’s Demand for Obedience Keeps Us in the Dark Ages. It’s about the religious worldview that sees human existence as a […]
We are witnessing a paradigm shift in medicine that is equal to that of Galileo saying the Earth was not the center of the Universe or Columbus saying that the world was round, not flat.
Editor’s Note: Today, in honor of World Water Day, we’re publishing this guest post from Doc Hendley, the founder of Wine to Water, a nonprofit organization focused on bringing clean […]