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Growing up in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, “made in Asia” always held a less than positive connotation. Back then, most people believed–mostly because of poorly-made electronics, […]
There’s a four-week mission to Mars taking place right now, complete with a Mars landing module known as the LEM, a full-size Mars rover, a mobile quarantine unit, a bio lab and […]
Help the secular community out! Two fellow bloggers have requests that some of you fine people may be able to fulfill: • Greta Christina is writing a new book about […]
I’m so surprised that so many people are convinced that monogamy—heterosexual, human monogamy, in particular—is some type of biological default.
The ultimate goal of any education system should be to give people the opportunity to find and bring to life that which motivates them intrinsically. 
The nonpartisan yet aggressively reforming mayor of NYC wants to ban sugary drinks of more than 16 ounces from being sold in various public establishments. We Southerners note that the ban would […]
Last night Frontline aired the film al-Qaeda in Yemen, which was reported by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad who writes for the Guardian and who, along with Declan Walsh when he was at […]
When you look at the best healthcare systems in the world — that is, the ones that provide the best care and are the most efficient — you will find […]
As Yogi Berra said of baseball, it is 90 percent mental, and “the other half is physical.” This ‘Yogi-ism’ is equally applicable to tennis, a sport in which elite players need to be “intuitive physicists” in order to win at the highest level. 
Realizing technology’s promise of accelerating our collective learning – of making us smarter, faster – is a matter of building the right tools, then using each to teach the form of knowledge it conveys most efficiently. 
In perhaps this blog’s worst kept secret, I have been writing a book. In fact, I started working on the book before Brian and I even started Waq al-waq.  Originally, […]