Guest Thinkers — October 15, 2009

How’s the Water?

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Want to help protect your region’s sources of fresh water? Or find out the results of the latest water-quality tests for the stuff you’re drinking? If you live in the United States, now you can, easily.

Just go here. Hat tip to Eric Baard for this site.

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Starts With A Bang

Ask Ethan: Could SETI detect a “twin” of Earth?

Earth is actively broadcasting and actively searching for intelligent civilizations. But could our technology even detect ourselves?

A person sits on a sidewalk near an escalator entrance, next to an overturned shopping cart on a metal grate.

The Present

Can science solve the poverty problem?

An evidence-based policy movement is arming the fight with tools and programs that are more effective than ever before.

Map showing migration routes across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to the Indian Ocean, with sightings marked by colors and dates.

Strange Maps

Hungry or horny? Whale makes record swim halfway across planet

In 8,000-mile journey, a male humpback ditches Colombia for Tanzania — however, scientists don’t know why he made the trip.

Starts With A Bang

Our Universe has more galaxies than Carl Sagan ever imagined

Forget billions and billions. When it comes to the number of galaxies in the Universe, both theorists’ and observers’ estimates are too low.

The letters "AI" appear with a glitch effect in multicolored pixels against a black background.

The Present

AI skeptic Gary Marcus on AI’s moral and technical shortcomings

The cognitive scientist argues the current AI environment is failing us as consumers and a society. But it’s not too late to change course.

Up Next

Culture & Religion

The Annals of Annoying Required Reading

When Josh Lieb set out to write a book about a 12-year-old billionaire from Nebraska, the comedy writer and producer of The Daily Show, didn’t incorporate too many details from […]