Guest Thinkers — July 8, 2011

A Lawyer’s Advice for Reporters Covering Rape Trials

Attorney Jill Filipovic has a terrific primer for reporters covering rape cases. Her post was inspired by this story in Mother Jones about the Jamie Leigh Jones/KBR rape case. Jones alleges that she was gang raped while working for KBR in Iraq.

Last year, Megan Carpentier wrote a bracing debunking of KBR’s spin in RH Reality Check, her piece well worth revisiting.

[Photo credit: Phil Roeder, Creative Commons. This is a photo of the U.S. Supreme Court, which doesn’t try rape cases, but I like the image.]

a group of people standing in the shape of a world map.

The Present

The case for “coöperism”: How we can solve global problems together

If we took the values and principles of cooperation to the next level, we could effectively tackle many crises.

a close up of a robot head on a white background.

High Culture

The 4 most terrifying AI systems in science fiction

From forgotten Hollywood movies to Frank Herbert’s “Dune,” science fiction illustrates some of our deepest fears about technology.

Hard Science

Plants perform quantum mechanics feats that scientists can only do at ultra-cold temperatures

Plants at room temperature show properties we had only seen near absolute zero.

The Past

The 1920s plan to make criminals confess to a terrifying skeleton

Would you confess your crimes to a skeleton with “an unnatural ghastly glow”? One inventor thought you would.

Smart Skills

Swamped by too much info? Here’s how to beat the “noise bottleneck”

It’s the paradoxical observation that the more we try to process, the less we actually can.

Up Next

Guest Thinkers

Brian Eno: “Speech Is Song”

Currently collaborating with the British poet Rick Holland, music producer Brian Eno has seen speech take on different qualities when it is set to music. “We are all singing,” he says.