Jesse Bering is the author of the new book, “Why is the Penis Shaped Like that?: And Other Reflections on Being Human.” He is well known in my circles as […]
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The United Nations (UN) estimates that 56.9 million people died in 2008. Of those, 63.5% died because of Group II causes (i.e., noncommunicable diseases (NCDs)), and almost 30% died because […]
More or less anybody who has ever done anything newsworthy can cite, as Henry Rollins can, some turning point at which they made a risky decision that paid off, and a lifelong sense of mission not easily derailed by minor failures.
So Cato Institute president Ed Crane is taking an “early retirement” and megabucks former BB&T CEO John Allison is set to take his place. It’s easy to see why Allison […]
I can still vividly remember reading, back in 2001, the New York Times Magazinewrite-up on the release of The Corrections. It began: Some days, Jonathan Franzen wrote in the dark. […]
BIG THINKER Daniel Honan reminds us that Mayor Bloomberg is not in any obvious sense an ideologue. He’s just about using the power of government to curtail behavior that costs the […]
Would you exchange your personal privacy for an Internet that’s not boring? Companies like Airtime – which launched to a mix of acclaim, hype and skepticism last week – certainly hope so. They hope that you will allow certain […]
For many Americans, burgers and fireworks may be enough of a July 4th celebration. But to appreciate the curiosities and meaning of Independence Day, you might want to sit down […]
After writing my previous post chastising the National Atheist Party, I thought (and hoped) that I’d be done writing about Reason Rally drama. Alas, it was not to be. Apparently, […]
Our species’ history appears to be aligned to the length of our weapons: how far, how much, how long can we keep attacking, killing, damaging? Men with bullets became men […]
I interviewed Paul Zak, founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies at Claremont Graduate University, for the first time two years ago. We met for a coffee at Neuroscience […]
Just when you think you’ve gotten away from the so-called “grandmother cell,” it comes around again. It’s the proverbial Whack-A-Mole in the neuroscience world. No matter how many times the […]
What is the Big Idea? While Congress dukes it out over the federal interest rates on student loans, venture capitalist Peter Thiel has a solution for college students who don’t […]
Psychology is rich in findings that emerge from complex statistics done on the behavior of college students behaving for money or course credit. It’s fair to wonder, then, how well […]
Both links/excerpts come from Eric Barker at the reliably stimulating Barking up the Wrong Tree. First, strong relationships. Via The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel […]
My Google news alert has been flooded with stories about the Reason Rally this week, and quite a few of them come from religious organizations expressing their own viewpoints about […]
We’ve long been fascinated by the endless streams of data available in the world around us, and we especially love to try to make sense of them.
There are many ways to look at Europe other than as a collection of nation-states. Plenty of other imagined communities lurk beneath the surface of the standard political map. Check […]
A new study has isolated stem cells in human ovaries that could be developed into mature eggs, or ova. This discovery “opens the door for development of unprecedented technologies to overcome infertility in women and perhaps even delay the timing of ovarian failure.”
If there’s one trend that’s poised to take off and enter the mainstream in 2012, it’s 3D printing. Sometimes referred to as additive manufacturing, 3D printing is the process of taking […]
A new Pew poll, and the global perception captured in the chart below, leads Ali Wyne, a fellow Big Thinker, to inquire in an interesting post about the meaning of the idea, […]
The Economist hosted its “Ideas Economy” event this week at the Berkeley Haas School of Business to talk about disruptive technologies, entrepreneurship, and economic growth. The focus of the event […]
Hello readers. I’ve been on vacation for the last several days. Here’s an old post from my previous blog WhyWeReason.com to fill the void. It’s about a paper by the NYU […]
I’d like to add to the recent wave of eulogies in honor of Paul Fussell, poetry and culture critic, veteran of the Second World War and author of a classic […]
Return on Investment. The three words that anyone working in the digital marketing industry dreads hearing. It usually comes right after the pitch, after a slight furrowing of the brow […]
With state and local governments still suffering from a persistent deficit of tax revenues due to the moribund economic recovery, smart politicians are looking ahead and lobbying for spaceport development […]
As Wisconsin voters stream to the polls today in the Gov. Scott Walker recall election, most commentators are warning that a Walker win would be a disaster for the left. […]
Researchers in the field of school technology leadership are focused on how technology changes education (for better or worse) and how leaders can ameliorate those changes. With the exception of […]
Over the past year, I’ve read about a half dozen of Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo’s novels. If you are heading on vacation this summer, I recommend you pick a […]
Warning: Don’t read this if your funny bone’s in traction, or if your tongue can’t be planted firmly in cheek… On a talk show I heard an ex-agent describe the […]