The legal fight over same-sex marriage in federal courts is just beginning, and the outcome is far from certain. But in the aftermath of Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling overturning California’s […]
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Save yourself the time and effort: parents have much less influence over their children’s personality than we think, says controversial psychologist Judith Rich Harris.
While over $300 billion worth of prescription drugs were sold in the U.S. in 2009, the pharmaceutical industry is now bringing fewer new drugs to market each year now than […]
My new television show “Sci-Fi Science” on The Science Channel is inspired by my book “Physics of the Impossible.” The first season of the show takes viewers through the wildest […]
My new television show “Sci-Fi Science” on The Science Channel is inspired by my book “Physics of the Impossible.” The first season of the show takes viewers through the wildest […]
My new television show “Sci-Fi Science” on The Science Channel is inspired by my book “Physics of the Impossible.” The first season of the show takes viewers through the wildest […]
Following up on Monday’s post about WikiLeaks, today I address the moral correctness of the organization. There is no evidence that WikiLeaks disclosed the names of Afghan informants; there is inductive evidence that […]
Stanley Fish argues that plagiarism is not a “big moral deal” because the taboo against passing off someone else’s work as your own is just an arbitrary disciplinary convention. Fish […]
“America has always been the country in the world with more protection for speech,” says legendary First Amendment Lawyer Floyd Abrams, adding, “there’s really an astonishing, a breathtaking degree of […]
Salt and Salander flip conventional notions of gender roles. Are they the new models of millennial femininity while sacrificing being “real” women, asks Luisita Lopez Torregrosa.
The efforts of tens of thousands of players in an online game provided a rich, new set of search strategies for the prediction of protein structures. “Nature” explains the implications.
Out-of-control Jersey Shore cast member Snooki reveals the ever-shrinking gap in America between who we are and how we broadcast ourselves to the world, Max Fisher considers.
We are but two days away from Friday 13th August, which for all of those who are superstitious about black cats or walking under ladders, threatens to be something of […]
Cancer cells love sugar. More specifically, fructose and glucose fuel pancreatic cancer cell growth. More reason to rein in your sugar consumption, says Conner Middelmann Whitney.
Quality, not cost, is the reason companies cite for their increasing investment in open source software, says Amy Vernon in a report on an Accenture survey.
As the German military pays $5,000 to every family that lost a member in an airstrike in Afghanistan, Spiegel looks at how much the life of a dead civilian is worth.
Are many of the unemployed stupidly and stubbornly holding out for a higher wage than they can get? Tyler Cowen says no but that many do not face an easy adjustment.
Explaining our predisposition to religious belief, just as scientists can explain taste and perception of color, does not make it a nonsense, says neuroscientist Michael Graziano.
Karl Walling, the strategy professor falsely accused online of advocating rape in a lecture, considers the cost of protecting academics from such outrages.
Scientists are finding that what we find freakish or unsettling in other species offers fresh insight into how we anthropomorphize our perceptions into a revealing saga of ourselves.
The controversy over the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” comes down to one thing: no one should be denied the right to build a house of worship solely on the basis […]
Df s;dlkj;fdslk ;lkfdj;lfdsjlkfdj My wife laughs at my penchant for taking photographs of sculpture when we travel. It’s as if I’m trying to bring these huge stone and marble marvels […]
Ohio State University law professor Douglas A. Berman says everyone affected by society’s laws ought to have a right to vote—even if they have to mail in their ballot from […]
Despite our puritanical roots, Americans are just as sexually liberated as Europeans, if not more so, according to recent studies. Americans tend to lose their virginity at the same age […]
Everyone has grown up hearing fantasy stories about the “fountain of youth.” We are still far from finding the fabled Fountain, but today the real question is quickly becoming “Would […]
Michael Stone is an expert on evil. A forensic psychiatrist and professor at Columbia, Stone has cataloged and classified evil acts into a 22-point scale for his show on the […]
Here is the uncomfortable truth for those, like me, who oppose Google and Verizon’s policy suggestion to the FCC concerning net neutrality: money talks and money walks. Investment and innovation […]
According to Ole Ole Olson at The Public Record, over the past year an invitation-only Yahoo group called “Digg Patriots” has been systematically pushing right-wing content and “burying” liberal views […]
Conservative columnist Ross Douthat opposes gay marriage because he cares more about his aesthetic ideals than he does about equality. In his latest New York Times op/ed Douthat rejects all […]
In describing economic growth, some economists ask how much our mental states have to do with how the economy functions. Trust, for example, is heralded as a necessity for transactions to occur.