If the eruption at Kirishima wasn’t enough to keep us occupied, Bromo in the Tengger Caldera has ramped up its activity significantly. Last fall, the volcano had a few explosive […]
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Having spent the last few days figuring out a way around the facebook and twitter blocks in Egypt, I’m back and ready to blog ….. about Yemen. There was another […]
I had a fun time last night speaking to the Licking County Rock and Mineral Club – lots of talk about volcanoes and we spent some time talking about our […]
If you say “it’s snowing hard out there,” are you annoyed if no one gets up to shovel the walkway?
Quit slouching—others may see you as weak! A recent study published in Psychological Science says posture plays an important role in how we perceive power in those around us.
The fallibility of eye-witness memory is well documented. But what about people’s memories of their own past intentions? This is an issue in memory research with real-life implications.
Indian executives pride themselves on things that set their country apart from China: democracy, a reliable legal framework for investors and a widespread command of English.
A new study has found that having an abortion does not put a woman at risk for mental health problems. But you know what does? Having a baby.
While social media has afforded us many things, it’s also given the uncanny ability for a single person to become many different people. All at the same time.
We live in a time of high-tech miracles. But, as world ruler, I’d strive to direct all that creativity towards servicing our need for more truth, more transparency, and more wisdom.
Longer words tend to carry more information, according to research by a team of cognitive scientists. That might sound intuitively obvious, until you start to think about it.
Small companies can now deploy technology that was previously reserved for large organizations so that nearly any employee can now work from anywhere.
The complexity of our 21st century problems has not just led to a postponement in peak creativity. It has also lessened the importance of the individual.
What kind of value can living well have? The analogy between art and life has often been drawn and as often ridiculed. We should live our lives, the Romantics said, as a work of art.
This semester I am teaching an interdisciplinary course on “Science, the Environment, and the Media.” The 25 combined undergraduate and graduate students in the course have split into project teams […]
Presidents generally cover a lot of ground in their State of the Union addresses. But they really can only sound one theme—or call on the country to do one thing—without […]
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of what astronomers believe may be the oldest galaxy ever seen—over 13 billion years old!
A cognitive scientist friend of mine made a good point the other day about Amy Chua’s assertion that “nothing is fun until you’re good at it.” It is, he said […]
During the Vietnam War, the US dropped an average one B-52 bomb load every 8 minutes, 24/7, for a total of 2 million tons of ordnance, making Laos the most […]
There was so much pre-speech talk about last night’s State of the Union address that President Obama’s quip “so I guess I don’t have to give it now” to Secretary […]
The powers that be are currently convening at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. But is this high-profile meeting of minds really the best setting for predicting and responding to the world’s future crises? Or does it fall prey to the same biases that triggered the recent recession in the first place?
Some lessons in media literacy are more painful than others. Listen up, kids. Despite what you read in the papers, you cannot get high on bath salts or plant food. […]
So the headline is a bit extreme to get your attention. But let me share with you my favorite conservative response to our president’s challenging and unevenly interesting speech last […]
Around the globe in Japan, Kirishima, a volcano on the southern island of Kyushu, has started erupting vigorously. I haven’t been able to find many reports, but the Tokyo VAAC […]
Get a front row seat to what the future holds by tuning into a LIVE webcast called “Farsight 2011: Beyond the Search Box” on February 1 from 10am to 2pm PST on BigThink.com
Vladimir Nabokov, popular author and self-taught expert on butterflies, once put forth a theory of evolution for the Polyommatus blues butterfly. Today, his theory is getting some attention.
The girlie-girl culture being marketed to little girls is less innocent than it might seem, and can have negative consequences for girls’ psychological, social and physical development.
The Enlightenment left us with few resources for thinking about what the good life really is, and how we should live it, because the focus was on winning individuals their freedom.
Inspired by Tunisia, Egyptians began their protests online and then added hard tactics on the ground in their effort to bring down a crushingly effective police state.
Once upon a time, films would open, close, appear on video, then vanish. Now with dozens of television channels to fill and rentals going postal, some films never go away.