I love smart design, when you can just look at a product or service and be able to see the methodical, thorough, detail-oriented thinking process that went behind it, aimed […]
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We have reached a moral, legal and demographic tipping point in the controversy. Many signs point to an imminent marriage revolution: gay and lesbian Americans across the country will enjoy a right to marry — maybe before the end of the year.
Many conservatives are sympathetic to one argument against the Defense of Marriage Act: It’s a violation of the principle of federalism.
From the viewpoint of our genes, having children must be the meaning of life, says science writer Dr. Lawrence Rifkin. The only purpose of their existence is to be passed down to future generations.
Mindfulness, or mindfulness meditation, in which practitioners intentionally pay attention to the present in a nonjudgemental way, has become a useful tool in the stress management toolkit.
Experiments on animal cognition have found that intelligence is more dynamic than we once thought and that animals may be far more clever than we have historically given them credit for.
Using a technique known as optogenetics, neuroscientists have gained an unparalleled window into how individual neural networks work in the brain by borrowing jellyfish protein.
Dmitry Itskov, a Russian Internet mogul, is soliciting investment for what he expects will be the world’s first immortality research center. Immortality is not a bad return on investment.
The popularity of cable cooking shows and the wide availability of once-exclusive kitchen tools have resulted in gourmet food being consistently within arm’s reach.
Combining tactics from the fields of physics, computational biology, virology and immunology, scientists at MIT and Harvard have found a new path forward for the potential development of an HIV vaccine.
As a result of various social pressures, the stakes of producing positive results in medical experiments is very high and thanks to statistical tricks, researchers know how to create them.
Last week, England’s chief medical officer compared the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria to the threat of global terrorism. Surprisingly, the comparison was understated.
Biologists have begun to discover just what a treasure trove the oceans’ coral reefs are in terms of finding potential cures to some of humanity’s worst diseases, despite threats to the reefs’ existence.
Associated Press reports that two Americans are somehow still receiving Civil War veterans’ benefits. Although I’m guessing that a good deal of the media coverage devoted to this discovery will […]
A source for 888.com says it could offer its services in Nevada as soon as May, making the state the second to legalize Internet betting since a federal act banned it in 2006.
India is still a magical place. What we hear most often about the Motherland these days is her extraordinary leap into the modern world, her burgeoning prosperity, and her enormous […]
In 2002, Richard Florida published his celebrated book The Rise of the Creative Class about the growth of the creative workforce and its implications for the rest of the culture […]
A survey of American adults showed that while more of us are living more of our lives online than ever before, there’s a corresponding rise in the need for and appreciation of physical objects, tasks, and connections.
In a new report, researchers say that high-speed rail has created “market integration” between three large Chinese cities and smaller “satellite” cities outside of them, and that some of their conclusions can apply to California’s current effort.
Find those who love to help, and let them help.
A Canadian man is offering a house for sale in either Canadian dollars “or its Bitcoin equivalent.” It’s one of several signs that the virtual currency is becoming more popular.
We lionize a small group of our kids and push other kids out to the margins. In doing so, we miss tremendous opportunities for them to become contributors to our society.
A study published in this week’s Science provides the clearest proof yet that a series of volcanic eruptions wiped out half of Earth’s animal and plant species prior to the dinosaur era.
He billed his first presidential visit to Israel as a listening tour, but it turns out Barack Obama is doing quite a bit of speaking as well. On his first […]
The appeal of the British drama/high-class soap opera Downton Abbey for American audiences has long been a subject of great speculation. Simon Schama called the show “cultural necrophilia” for bringing […]
Researchers in France have created a tiny new medical device, designed to be implanted beneath the skin, that uses enzymes to analyse the quality of a patient’s blood.
Researchers at HP Labs have created a new kind of three-dimensional display that projects hologram-like videos without the need of external hardware such as special glasses.
Nearly 10 years ago, the Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for crimes committed by minors in Roper v. Simmons. Justice Anthony Kennedy, representing the majority opinion, wrote: First, as […]
As recently as a decade ago, a common middle-class American interpretation of a father in a heterosexual couple was “Mom’s assistant,” as Louis C.K. called it. Parenting was a job […]
Austin is weird. The town’s tagline, “a collaborative fission of coordinated individualism,” is part hilarious and part profound. However it really is on point… the town is extra-ordinarily unique. Maybe […]