Coming to a highway near you, sometime in the next decade: Large trucks, traveling single-file, separated from each other by a mere few meters, controlled only by the driver in front.
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Researchers turned to an old Balkan folk remedy to create synthetic surfaces that employ tiny hair-like fibers to trap the insects.
The report, presented at a meeting of the American Chemical Society, follows studies warning of the presence of arsenic and possibly other heavy metals.
So BIG THINK published a sensible little essay by the distinguished public intellectual John Gray. He says don’t think about immortality as something you can achieve through your own efforts. […]
Nuclear engineering student Russell Goff thinks so…and he’s just formed a company to turn spent fuel rods into components to be used in a safe sterilization facility.
One very prominent global warming denier is a Dane named Bjorn Lomborg. He wrote a book about ten years ago that got a great deal of attention and he called […]
The brain imaging technique “everyone’s been waiting for” has arrived, and may speed up brain anatomy research “by 10 to 100 times.”
I’m in the communication business. I help you self-publish who you are, what brought you to an affair and then I give you the communication tools to communicate with other […]
One of the things that we find to be such an important element of many of the rituals and practices that people do as part of their religious traditions is […]
According to a new study published in this week’s Nature, icy particles inside the rings erode into the upper atmosphere and eventually form rain water that falls on parts of the planet.
I can’t think of an area that’s more ripe for the entry of small, disruptive, upstart companies than the psychiatric drug industry.
Scientists are getting closer to understanding how “dark lightning” produces bursts of gamma rays that may come in contact with a plane’s passengers and crew.
Maitri, Petya, Deni and Monika, all in their mid 20s, thought that it was a shame how the granny knitting talent is going to waste and decided that Bulgarian babas ought to take their deserved place in the world as the “knitting gurus” that they are.
1. Dark lightning Thunderstorms need to vent electrical energy, and they can do so in two ways. There is the Ben Franklin way and there is the extreme way: dark […]
Forget about immortalizing yourself. Don’t waste money. Don’t waste time. Don’t waste thought or anxiety on having yourself frozen or your brain frozen. Don’t curtail all your everyday enjoyments […]
According to a new study, the frequency and intensity of clear-air turbulence affecting transatlantic flights will increase significantly by 2050…and yes, we do have climate change to thank for it.
In Brian Sykes’s 2004 book Adam’s Curse: A Future Without Men, he described how male fertility could be decline to the point where men will no longer be able to reproduce naturally. […]
Skip Arnold tends to put his body in strange places, often while naked, and often in great discomfort. For instance, the naked man strapped to the hood of an eighteen-wheeler driving along […]
Since the Victorian invention of the modern, romantic concept of childhood, images of the innocent child have dominated Anglo-American culture and its art. Even nude images of young children that […]
Prayer effectively deals with sympathetic magic—the notion that your thoughts can alter reality from a distance, or influence outcomes in your life which you have no conscious control over.
Just as artists are using technology to enable participation, doctors need to do that too.
Congressional lawmakers are understandably miffed about the latest Cuban holiday of international superstars Beyonce and Jay-Z, who spent the weekend in Havana celebrating their fifth wedding anniversary accompanied by paparazzi, bodyguards […]
On the question of whether or not black people can swim the answer is yes, no and maybe. I asked the question in my book of a very special panel. […]
1. The Topless Revolution Targets Putin “Putin leered like Benny Hill at a topless protester,” was the headline on The Reliable Source. Gawker has the video of Putin giving the thumb’s up. […]
Not current smartphone users, who already have lots of app options: It’s the estimated 1.5 billion — most of them in the developing world — who are expected to buy their first smartphone in the next four years.
Fellow pseudonymous neuroblogger Neuroskeptic(to whom I owe a great deal in inspiration) has published a fantastic piece in Trends in Cognitive Sciences ($) on the benefits to science of anonymity. Last November Neuroskeptic became […]
The American Founders were deeply suspicious of Democracy, and structured a Constitution designed to protect both personal liberties and property from the tyranny of the majority. But the critical problem […]
Taking the paywall concept in a different direction, a Dutch news site offers its readers the option to subscribe to an individual journalist’s “channel” for a small fee.
“Although we often stereotype givers as chumps and doormats, they turn out to be surprisingly successful.” So writes Adam Grant in his celebrated new book, Give and Take: A Revolutionary […]
I often have pointed out that interviewing people gives me the opportunity to shut the fuck up. I don’t have to talk. There’s certainly this idea that interviewing doesn’t involve […]