Guest Thinkers

So I’ve taken a break from blogging for a while for several reasons.  I was at Mercer University at Macon for a great conference on Alexis de Tocqueville.  I gave […]

It’s not easy for most urban dwellers to get their daily dose of nature moving from one concrete box to another. Habitat Horticulture tries to solve this problem by painting walls […]

Another quick weekend post! Etna has sprung back to life as April opens, with new eruptions from the Southeast Crater Cone. Friday and Saturday (April 8-9), the Italian volcano produced […]

Couples don’t fight about what they identify in surveys: money, sex, raising the kids, in-laws, or housework. Lovers fight when they believe their partners don’t care about how they feel.

A century ago, governments began to assert their authority over poor people and immigrants whose bad behavior was supposedly spreading epidemic diseases like smallpox, cholera and typhus. Cops in Boston […]

A protest in Toronto last weekend against sexual assault stereotypes, affectionately called the “Sluts March”, reminded me that I have omitted (or perhaps avoided) talking about rape here on Dollars […]

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the architect of the Republican’s new budget proposal, is courageous in one sense. By proposing to privatize Medicare and reduce Medicare benefits, he is risking his […]

One of the hottest ideas in business and technology is the idea of leveraging gaming technology to solve real world problems. Now is the time for the healthcare industry to take notice.

Despite its barbaric reputation, medical care during the Civil War helped dawn a new era of modern medicine thanks to advances brought about in anesthesiology and organized triage. 

Very brief update as I spent all day in the Department of Geological Science at Michigan State and gave a talk so, I’m a bit exhausted (but thanks for a […]

You’ve probably heard of the trend among America’s city dwellers to grow their own food, but you probably haven’t heard of urbanites raising their own livestock.  In a guest post […]

Farmers markets are wildly popular among the urban elite in Washington, D.C. and other urban areas across the country.  In a guest post today, Melissa Winn considers efforts to expand […]

Yesterday the City of London moved against the fish porters of Billingsgate Market in London, revoking their licences in a move that would be more familiar to mediaeval Knights than […]

After reading the David Brooks New York Times column that lauded the courage and guts of GOP Rep. Paul Ryan to actually put together an “adult” congressional budget, one that […]

The aftershocks of the controversy surrounding the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery’s decision to drop David Wojnarowicz’s 1987 video “A Fire in My Belly” from their exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire […]

Bringing philosophers into the corporation is not an entirely new idea. But in our new era of computational power the Philosopher-Kings will be determining how each of us lives, thinks and feels.

The recent 7.4 magnitude earthquake and tsunami to hit northern Japan on April 7 underscores the delicate situation at the Fukushima reactors. Although workers had to evacuate the site, preliminary […]

It may be a bit weird to use the word ‘elegant’ to describe something with the name “Peepoo” but that’s exactly what it is – an absolutely brilliant and elegant […]

Two of my last posts were about video calls and augmented reality and a possible usage scenario of those technologies in education. Now, what would happen if we combined those […]

The trend of solar power getting steadily less expensive is set to continue over the next decade—in sunny parts of the world it is already starting to compete with coal production.

This week, Arizona passed a law that makes it a felony to knowingly terminate a pregnancy that was sought because of the race or sex of the fetus.  Karen Franz, […]

Over the past few years, scholars and scientists have been re-examining both the goals and the nature of science communication initiatives.  In a guest post today, Melanie Gade reviews much […]

If you could pick as close to an anonymous volcano in the Pacific Northwest, you might be tempted to pick Newberry Caldera in Oregon (I might also take partial credit for […]

A range of environmental issues — from biodiversity to ocean acidification — have linkages to climate change.  Yet, given polarized views on climate change, how can these linkages be effectively […]

This is Twilight, for poets. It’s not designed to fly over your head; it’s designed as to shoot straight to your heart.

Rather than hauling heavy atmospheric pumps from earth, the way to create a habitable atmosphere on Mars is to take advantage of its own topology, geography and nature.

Of all the news stories I’ve read over the last few days, the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn has stuck in my mind […]

Ask a student, any student, what ‘R2P’ means, and you can be forgiven for the blank stare you are likely to receive. Flesh it out into ‘Responsibility to Protect’, and you are still likely to get […]

A vast expanse of freshwater in the midst of the Arctic Ocean is set to wreak unpredictable changes on the climate in Europe and North America, new scientific analysis has shown.

Given current technology, the vast distances between objects in outer space prohibit interstellar travel—missions to and from foreign stars—but a fusion powered spaceship could change that.