The US Army is requesting proposals for development of coatings and other substances that will absorb 99 percent of all light.
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Gracenote, the company best known for cataloguing music data, is about to roll out a service that will enable displaying of commercials based on the viewer’s age, gender, income, and other publicly available information.
Flutter now offers its gesture-recognition technology through a Google Chrome extension that works on media sites like Netflix and Pandora.
In 1951, musical composer and overall art theorist John Cage (shown above) stepped into an anechoic chamber at Harvard University. Touted as the quietest place on Earth, the anechoic chamber […]
So I’ve gotten several emails asking what I think about the idea talked up by the devoted Democratic professor Jonathan Zimmerman in the semi-iconoclastic Christian Science Monitor: affirmative action for conservatives […]
Planetary Resources isn’t the first company formed around the mission of extracting valuable metals from the asteroid belt, but it may be the first one with some real investor belief and funding behind it.
Comet ISON was first spotted well beyond Jupiter’s orbit, which makes it fairly large. If it makes it past the sun it could light up the night sky by this time next year.
My latest column is now up on AlterNet, There Are Now As Many Nonreligious Americans As Evangelicals — 6 Ways Politicians Can Court Their Vote. In it, I discuss the […]
Three years ago, on December 17, 2009, the Obama administration launched its first strike on what it believed to be an AQAP training camp in southern Yemen. Unfortunately, what the […]
In a mid-career essay about his elder contemporary Robert Frost, the poet W. H. Auden observes that “[Thomas] Hardy, [W. B.] Yeats and Frost have all written epitaphs for themselves.” […]
Last month, I posed a list of questions to people who identify as pro-life. In the long comment thread which ensued, there were a fair number of people who stepped […]
More should be done towards creating a resource file to help medical professionals evaluate whether the average person can handle space travel, say the authors of a new paper.
A newly published paper reveals that the rate at which temperatures are rising was greatly underestimated, and the results parallel those recently found in Greenland and other northern polar regions.
Launched last week, the game, called Clouds, is the newest addition to the Milky Way Project and to Zooniverse, which is home to some of the largest online citizen science endeavors.
The Taboos of Alan Moore, Conclusion The topic of sexuality and children elicits justifiably strong reactions. However, as with most strong emotions, it also leads to unjustified, often irrational, responses […]
You may have missed it, but on the Friday heading into the Christmas holiday, the FDA announced its decision about the safety of salmon genetically engineered to grow faster. After […]
Last month, I posed a list of questions to people who identify as pro-life. In the long comment thread which ensued, there were a fair number of people who stepped […]
It stands to reason that conservative parents would be more inclined to propagate the Santa myth, and not only because they tend to be more religious than liberals. Deception for […]
Yes, you get a Christmas post! Atheists don’t take the day off just because people think a mythological savior-god was born on this date thousands of years ago. So my […]
The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 will include rules for how apps and social networks gather and use personal data from young users.
The company is testing a feature that will allow individuals can send messages to members outside of their friends network for a dollar per message.
Despite studies discrediting links between video games and gun violence, both industries have quietly benefited from product placement.
I mentioned in my last post that I had attended the Economist’s “The World in 2013” festival. Here are some zingers (paraphrased) that got my attention: Peter Orszag: Life expectancy […]
Kathmandu, the country’s capital, suffers from high levels of dust pollution. The army chief, a devoted cyclist, says the move will also encourage a healthier way of living.
As in other majority non-Christian countries such as Japan, it’s largely seen as a secular holiday. Focus is placed largely on children, with Santa Claus making the rounds as well.
In response to a growing number of visitors along with recent city ordinances restricting or eliminating on-street parking, some parking garage owners are turning to smartphone technology.
Mercadillos, or “little markets,” are stepping into the gap created between larger retailers who can’t release their stock and struggling customers looking for bargains.
Largely out of nostalgia and increased health consciousness, executives are returning to bikes as a means of transport. The ones they’re buying reflect their new status.
This holiday season, perhaps more than any other recent holiday season, the greatest gift we can ask for is peace. Thanks to Yoko Ono’s IMAGINE PEACE (photo above), a synchronized […]
The first day of the new year always represents the potential for profound renewal—a new cycle in relationship to the passing of time, a precious moment in which many of […]