“So far, so Minority Report.” The New Scientist heads to Los Angeles to investigate the development of gesture-based computing, a fun exercise intended for serious number crunchers.
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Just as better off New Yorkers head for the Hamptons in August and the French head en masse on holiday, clogging up roads, the British see August as the month […]
The Ice Storm, Rick Moody’s novel, was published in 1994, set in 1973. One of the things readers who loved the book but were not yet born (or were barely […]
There are few things we take more for granted than the concept of gravity. Through history, physicists like Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein have developed theories about the Universe that […]
It’s been a good year for Emily Pilloton, founder of social-good nonprofit Project H Design and author of the excellent Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People. A PopTech fellow […]
In the study of uniquely human traits—language, mathematics, moral behavior—there are few academic stars as bright as Marc Hauser, a psychologist at Harvard. His collaborators in academia are top-shelf (they […]
David Adamovich throws knives for a living. Really big knives. With 25 world records under his belt, Adamovich is the world’s fastest and most accurate knife thrower. He also holds […]
This has been the “Summer of the Spill.” Since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion on April 20, 2010, the epic BP oil spill has oozed into imaginations trying to […]
Why are we using 1970’s style distribution techniques for anything in 2010? I was tooling through the black conservative website Booker Rising when I came across a comment by one […]
“By focusing all our attention on whether we need a bigger stimulus or a smaller deficit, we’re flying blind.” TNR says we should concentrate on deeper reforms toward a knowledge based economy.
“Is a strategy of killing off Mexico’s drug kingpins really viable?” ‘Yes’, says a researcher at the University of Mexico, but only because political will to legalize and regulate drugs is lacking.
Climate change deniers who fault others for not verifying the underlying science set an unachievable standard. We rightly trust the consensus of experts in nearly every aspect of our lives.
Those decrying the death of the intellect, and the book, at the hands of the nefarious Internet would do well to recall that the printed page itself was once called the destroyer of education.
“Many problems which are more prevalent lower down the social ladder are worse in societies with bigger income differences, and second, almost everyone would benefit from reduced inequality.”
Ironically, the age of the iPod has made finding new music harder than ever. The Atlantic begins a three part series on going beyond the radio to discover what’s new in music town.
For the first time ever, scientists have made an invisibility cloak from silk. Current research focuses on medical applications for diabetics while visions of Harry Potter remain far afield.
“A lack of women during men’s teenage years still haunts their health decades later.” The Economist reports on a surprising study that hints at an important formative sexual period.
“The point in prehistory when our early ancestors first picked up a sharp-edged stone to butcher animals has been pushed back one million years with the discovery of ancient bones.”
New bilateral free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea are important tools for reviving the economy, boosting American exports and competing with Canada.
Frank Rich’s piece in the New York Review of Books, “Why Has He Fallen Short?” questions the benefits of raw intelligence as the key skill for political life. Or rather, […]
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 […]
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.