Last night allowed me only, I don’t know, three hours of sleep, so my lucidity might be a little off today. I’m also a little giddy after getting my paper […]
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Oil markets don’t like surprises. The sudden ousting of Mr. Mubarak and the unrest in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran and Algeria had added 20% to oil prices by the middle of last week.
Contributing to the uprisings across the Middle East is the suppression of democratic aspirations by authoritarian regimes. Important too is the dangerous state of the region’s economies.rn
From WikiLeaks to Guantanamo Bay, legal challenges present false threats to America’s unquestionable military dominance, says University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner.
Oxford professor of economics Paul Collier says the biggest challenge facing Africa today is to reign in corruption during what is sure to be an era of massive resource extraction.
Journalists Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington clinched an Oscar nomination for their documentary “Restrepo,” in which they show the Afghanistan war through the eyes of soldiers.
Ever since Charles Darwin formulated his theory of evolution, scientists have wondered whether the process still applies to humans. At some point, did we stop evolving?
American’s mediocre placement in the world of standardized tests has little to do with the popular notion of its present decline—the golden age of American education simply never was.
Although mainstream media have devoted few resources to covering the collective bargaining battle in Wisconsin, it is alive and well—police have recently taken the side of the protesters.
The newest geological time period—called the Anthropocene—is gaining recognition. It defines our industrialized era in which humans will indelibly mark the earth’s physical profile.
In the space of a month, the centre of gravity in the world has shifted back to the Middle—to Egypt and other young societies across the Middle East and North Africa, says history professor Mark Levine.
Amidst the radical change in the Middle East, JFK’s first inaugural address remains a prescient reminder that our nation is founded upon the ideals of revolution and social progress.
Britain’s former prime minister made two unannounced calls to Colonel Gaddafi on Friday and asked him to stop killing protesters rising up against the regime.
Is it a coincidence that the Wall Street bankers responsible for the market crash were men, or do aggressive risk-taking strategies befall the male gender more naturally?
“I don’t own a computer, have no idea how to work one,” Woody Allen told an interviewer recently. Author Jim Hold asks if those of us with computers are really better off?
Civil resistance usually cannot survive systematic and violent repression, and it is still often suppressed by authoritarian governments. At least in the Arab world, this seems to be changing.
Many of this year’s top movies portray dark themes or flawed characters. One culture watcher says they mirror this moment in history where anti-heroes are the more common stock.
Biologist and popular author Richard Dawkins says that human intelligence is undervalued these days. We must do away with rulebooks and start trusting our own judgment, he says.
Abraham Verghese, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, offers surprising reasons for why C.T. scans should not replace the ritual of doctors examining patients’ bodies.
Context, oblique cultural allusions, metaphors and so on are par for the course in human-to-human conversation, but entirely beyond machines, says a Turing Test participant.
When the brain juggles two—or more—languages, there are positive consequences for the brain, says Ellen Bialystok, a psychology professor at York University in Toronto.
Simple marketing strategies can be very effective at getting kids to eat healthier lunches, like putting fruit in an attractive bowl and replacing carrots with ‘x-ray vision carrots’.
Waq al-waq has decided, in keeping with protests in Yemen, to keep a running tally of people resigning from the ruling GPC. It very much looks like people are abandoning […]
One of the unavoidable realities of going to look at art in a museum is the feeling that you the viewer are being viewed yourself—especially by your fellow patrons. In […]
The blogging scientist Minerva agrees with ME against the transhumanist on the future pressure to design or enhance your offspring or else. She’s surprised that it’s possible to agree with someone […]
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s remarks last week were in keeping with his ongoing effort to restructure the armed forces and create what he has called a “truly 21st century” military.
The idea of a coming Singularity refers to a point in time of radical exponential progress, beyond which our minds can’t imagine—the technological counterpart to an event horizon in a black hole.
A little over a week ago I wrote a post on what I saw as the tribal jockeying that was taking place against the backdrop of the protests in Yemen. […]
AS the United Nations Security Council meets in New York, Secretary General Ban ki moon is calling for “decisive” action to be taken against the Libyan regime. The UN Secretary […]
Putting on a bright face at work could leave you feeling miserable. Workers who fake a smile to keep their customers and colleagues happy could be making themselves depressed.