The means by which scary black holes at the centers of most galaxies suck up gas from their surroundings by overcoming centrifugal force has now been pinned down by astronomers.
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The New Republic reviews “Heather Has Two Mommies,” one of the first books aimed at young children to tackle the taboo of depicting same-sex partners as parents.
Whether it’s deciding what to drink, what to wear or whom to marry, The Salon’s Thomas Rogers asks if America’s decision-obsession is always for the best.
Senator Scott Brown’s committee assignments include joining the Armed Services, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs; a posting which tilts too far toward defense for some.
New research suggests that a large space rock exploded over Antarctica thousands of years ago, leaving a scattering of tiny meteoric particles and a layer of extraterrestrial dust.
You can ruin your child by inflating their self esteem and giving themtoo little sleep, according to the The Washington Post’s George F. Will, so do them a favor and pipe down.
A Chinese homeless man from the city of Ningbo has caused a sensation for the rag-tag but well co-ordinated clothes he wears, drawing legions of internet fans.
America, we often hear, doesn’t make things any more. The drop in manufacturing is sometimes blamed on free trade agreements and is seen as part of our long-term economic decline. […]
Is there a more iconic piece of Americana? The sashes and tiaras, canned responses about world peace, and of course the not-so-genuine hug between the champion and runner-up. But the […]
Michael Foot, orator extraordinaire, Parliamentarian, journalist and bibliophile. Michael Foot, radical, internationalist and Socialist, has passed away at the very grand old age of 96, and rarely can it be […]
“I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins,” said the British geneticist J.B.S. Haldane, neatly summarizing the theory of “kin selection”: To predict how much one […]
“Religion is not an adaptation,” Robert Wright says in his Big Think interview. “That is, it’s not here because it was conducive to the replication of the genes underlying it.” But […]
Jason Epstein thought of Amazon before Jeff Bezos. Or at least, he understood the concept: the necessity, and power, of making the world’s backlist available at all times. Epstein’s uniquely […]
In the last twelve months we’ve seen two new political organizations hit the nationwide scene with an intensity and a geographic presence unheard of since the sixties. Unlike the Libertarian […]
Journalists may one day have a Saint among their ranks: the Roman Catholic church recently announced that the late Spanish journalist Manuel Lozano Garrido will be beatified this June, making […]
People who think that journalist Ryszard Kapuściński was a liar are missing the point, writes one Guardian blogger, who says there is no sharp frontier between literature and reporting.
While the rest of the world is shuddering at the debt pile mounting up on its balance sheets India is the elephant in the room as one of the few regions to have had a “good crisis.”
Scientologists defied copyright law for their latest promotional video, using clips from “Star Wars”, “Braveheart” and “Independence Day” to fire up its Las Vegas staff.
Four decades after the publication of Germaine Greer’s seminal feminist work “The Female Eunuch,” it has provoked an astonishing attack by a fellow Australian writer Louis Nowra.
It’s the perfect pairing, writes Salon: Sarah Palin and Jay Leno, who share a common foe in David Letterman, teamed up to deliver a blow to his ratings on Tuesday night.
The son of the founder of the Palestinian military group Hamas has admitted to spying for Israel for a decade, feeding information about Hamas’ terrorist plots to Israel’s Shin Bet.
Tut tut Nicolas Chartier, producer of Oscar nominated film ‘Hurt Locker, whose scathing emails about other nominees have landed him in hot water and banned from the awards.
Today Obama is due to make remarks indicating a willingness to work with the Republicans on some areas in exchange for their support in getting the health care reform bill passed.
The 1915 massacre of over a million Armenians by Ottoman Turks was a terrible tragedy, but getting it classified as “genocide” by the US could cause further damage to reconciliation.
Being underestimated was not a misfortune for Clint Eastwood, who used it to his advantage to forge an astonishing career which is still going, writes the New Yorker.
“The object of torture is torture.” As George Orwell wrote in 1984, torture is not a means to an end, it is an end in itself. As I’ve argued, there’s […]
In the third installment of our new series, The Future In Motion, we sat down with Burt Rutan, famed aerospace engineer and winner of the Ansari X Prize. In this […]
Jonah Lehrer argues in the New York Times Magazine that depression might be good for us. He’s popularizing a theory advanced by two Virginia researchers who claim that depression is […]
A curfew on Chile’s earthquake-ravaged Concepcion has been extended until midday today in a bid by troops to contain looting from damaged shops and buildings by panicked residents.
The university professor at the heart of the “Climategate” row over leaked emails admitted yesterday that some of his correspondence had been “pretty awful.”