If we wish to honor our 21st century gods (technology, capitalism), we might do well to hold a competition that celebrates the achievements of the human mind, not the body.
All Articles
America’s National Ignition Facility has set a new record for the amount of energy generated by lasers. The experiment will be used to work toward creating laboratory-controlled fusion.
If we are interested in testing the physical limitations of human biology through sport, we should create a second Olympics which allows the use of performance enhancing drugs.
Human-run institutions have had a spectacularly poor track record at monitoring the activity of the world’s largest banks, so companies are turning to artificial intelligence instead.
In his superb essay about his years as a Mormon (one of the best pieces about faith I have read in a long time) Walter Kirn notes that he said […]
Cheers for STEM. But what about the, um, rest of the fabulous, life changing, extraordinary and often more important teachers who don’t teach math, engineering, technology or science?
The new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayeris pregnant, and not planning on taking maternity leave. This has stirred renewed conversation about “having it all,” and women’s lives. I’ve written before in […]
She hardly needs my sympathy, but I feel sad for Marissa Mayer. It seems so unfair that the two most amazing things that may ever happen to her (having a […]
It is true, of course, that exceptional can just mean strikingly different—an exception to the rule.
A commitment to space exploration satisfies our curiosity and need to explore new lands, it provides innovation and new jobs to the economy, and it will help our species escape this rock.
Delivering a lecture at Trinity College, Dublin, the American geneticist spoke on how modern science has changed the parameters of life and how we are close to creating synthetic life.
The hiring and managing of employees is the achilles heel of many an otherwise tightly-run organization. Why? Because human beings come with many more variables than do widgets – we’re trickier to assess, our motivations are complex, and we change over time.
The Guardian reports that some English schools are opting out of HPV vaccination programmes because their pupils, say the schools, “follow strict Christian principles” and “do not practise sex outside […]
Yahoo wants to have it all. The company’s board has tasked new CEO Marissa Mayer with the mandate to compete with her former company, the cash register that is known […]
Hello readers. I’ve been on vacation for the last several days. Here’s an old post from my previous blog WhyWeReason.com to fill the void. It’s about a paper by the NYU […]
Performance art and film art have always been the afterthoughts of museums—the new kids on the block with no room of their own in the big culture houses. Institutions designed […]
NASA is working with Lockheed Martin to design a diet for astronauts on their way to Mars. Food is such an essential part of the journey that one astronaut may be dedicated to meal preparations.
A nonprofit dedicated to researching the science and technology needed to travel vast distances across the cosmos says lasers can be used to harvest antimatter from the vacuum of space.
Even the smartest people make irrational choices, says Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel prize-winning psychologist. Here’s why — and what you can do about it.
A chuck of ice 46 square miles in area has broken off the Petermann Glacier, according to the Canadian Ice Service. Scientists warn that rising ocean temperature could do further damage.
In New York City, Susan Miller is an institution, a sage of the media and fashion worlds. As the astrologist for Elle magazine, best-selling author, and founder of AstrologyZone.com (est. […]
Happiness is not an unalloyed good, Kant says. Without the correct character and orientation, without a sense of duty, happiness is just an animalistic state of mind.
These specially-made relief maps showed blind children were sensitive to the geo-distributive aspect of maps
I had a fantastic time at the Secular Student Alliance leadership convention two weeks ago, and wrote enthusiastically of what a juggernaut of secular awesome the SSA is. Well, it […]
A rash of new companies have sprung up to meet the demand for transportation of crew and cargo to orbit and to the International Space Station left by NASA’s cancelling of the shuttle program.
The FDA has banned bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottles in sippy cups. The FDA has not banned BPA for use in food containers. Huh? What […]
Coursera, an online education company founded by two Stanford professors, announced today that a dozen major research institutions will join the venture and offer more than 100 free online courses.
A technology start up that is adapting aged military equipment to civilian use wants to offer an unmanned aerial drone for $100 but the devices have raised questions about privacy law.
The future is a difficult thing to grasp, and not just because we can’t see it. Bringing innovation to life requires imagination, resourcefulness, the sort of limitless creative ambition we today associate mainly with science fiction writers.