A new photovoltaic energy-conversion system with many practical applications developed at M.I.T. can be powered solely by heat, generating electricity with no sunlight at all.
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Powerful design tools and techniques such as 3-D printing will enable manufacturers to be more nimble, creating flexible strategies that deliver more customized products.
Meetings can be the bane of corporate life, yet they are essential to effective decision making and execution and thus to business results. So how can they be improved?
Scientists are getting closer to creating life from a test tube in laboratory settings. Thanks to machines that replicate R.N.A. strands, Earth may be the first place we experience alien life.
The Tea Party has definitely put their money where their mouth is when it comes to their stance on raising the U.S. government’s debt ceiling. If I were a member […]
“Doomsday.” “Lehman times ten.” “A catastrophe.” “A political basket-case.” The ways of describing the potential outcome of the current U.S. government debt imbroglio continue to pile up, with the adjectives […]
Monday I posted on the reasons for the fall of Borders, reasons that go much deeper and broader than simply blaming Amazon. But how are the most treasured of urban […]
Words can be like tiny doses of arsenic: they are swallowed unnoticed, appear to have no effect, and then after a little time the toxic reaction sets in after all. […]
Today, we say goodbye to Sherlock Holmes (for the rest of the series, on the importance of true observation, seeing what isn’t there and not just what is, and preventing […]
What if you could radically reduce how many people get sick from foodborne diseases like e.coli and salmonella and norovirus; one American in six (48 million people) gets sick, […]
In a recent Big Think interview, Daily Beast blogger Andrew Sullivan offered his advice and thoughts on blogging. First, says Sullivan, you have to post at least twice a day […]
On Morning Joe this morning, Mavin Kalb and Deborah Kalb discussed their new book “Haunting Legacy,” an examination of how Vietnam has shaped the thinking and policy of presidents over […]
So today at the ISI honors program we were graced with a beautiful presentation on liberty in American poetry and song. The classy and distinguished presenter asked the students to […]
83 year old T. Boone Pickens’ C.V. reads like that of a small-to-medium-sized nation. How does he remain extraordinarily productive past the age when most people retire?
When Captain America was defrosted from a block of ice floating in the North Atlantic in Avengers #4 (1964), writer (and now national treasure) Stan Lee used an old idea […]
Astrophysicist David Spiegel and physicist Edwin Turner say that the life here on Earth could be common, or it could be extremely rare—there’s no reason to prefer one conclusion over the other.
Why does anything exist at all? The idea that the universe simply appeared out of nothing is difficult enough; trying to conceive of nothingness is perhaps even harder.
Despite high hopes for a new physics from the world’s largest particle collider, beyond a handful of unusual events, the latest data from the Large Hadron Collider are frustratingly ordinary.
Investments in renewable energy have been booming, but the government subsidies that have made renewable energy an attractive investment are bankrupting national budgets.
Energy derived from oil reaches, quite literally, every aspect of our lives. From the food we eat, to how we move ourselves around, without oil, our lives would look very differently.
Countries including China, India and Iran are engaged in a new race to explore space. Efforts include building research centers, rockets, satellites and lunar rovers.
I’ve spent the last two days at the Iowa Education Summit. Now that it’s over, I have a multitude of thoughts and observations swirling around in my head. Here are eight… […]
Earlier this summer I was feeling down in the dumps about libraries. I was spending the month of June in Flushing, Queens, a melting-pot neighborhood where the local library bustles […]
The first time you see the name Robert Henri, it’s natural to pronounce it “ahn-ree.” Although the artist was partly of French descent, he preferred “hen-rye,” perhaps as a nod […]
No matter how detailed the map, for some it will always be large enough to separate Us from Them
So I’m spending the week speaking at and otherwise participating in the national honors program of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute–a conservative educational foundation. The students are spectacularly impressive. They come from […]
If you are 15 years old, 50 or 50 x 2 step away from the screen right now and go to a mirror and look…. Did you look carefully? Who […]
Earlier today many of the internet jihadi forums posted an official audio tape from the al-Malahim media wing, which released all AQAP’s statements. (A note of caution: if it doesn’t […]
City investigators have determined that a great horned own found dead in Inwood Hill Park last month succumbed to avian herpes. The virus is not transmissible to humans. [Photo credit: […]
While I’ve been busy thinking and blogging about drones these past few weeks, things on the ground have continued to evolve even if there hasn’t been a great deal of […]