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Christmas may be Jesus’ “birthday,” but, as any mother will tell you, his mother Mary really deserves the applause. Providing the humanity half to join with Christ’s divine side, Mary volunteered to play a part from the Incarnation to the Crucifixion to the Resurrection as everything from an active participant to an interested bystander, depending on your interpretation of Christian scripture. 

Too many top minds have “positive capability” bias. That label usefully contrasts with Keats’ “negative capability,” a poetic idea that applies to many unpoetic experts. It explains why Shakespeare’s psychology is better than much of the modern “scientific” sort. 

A map of Africa displaying Ebola’s limited geographical reach seeks to educate the internet about the ridiculousness of ostracizing people who have recently returned from Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Most of us recognize soma as the ‘ideal pleasure drug’ in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. In this context the pleasure was pacifying—it kept people in line without questioning their […]

It was fifty years ago that the French philosopher and author Jean-Paul Sartre graciously refused the Nobel Prize for Literature. How different (and more noble?) his world was from ours.

Radiation gets stretched to longer and longer wavelengths as space itself expands, but what happens to matter? “The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.” –Molière It’s […]

Anyone who has seen James Cameron’s 1984 film The Terminator remembers “seeing” through the eyes of the killer android sent into the past as it scans its surroundings for clothes, weapons, and, eventually, its target. German filmmaker Harun Farocki would later call those pictures “operational images”—the machine-made and machine-used pictures of the world that threatened to supplant not just how people see, but people period.   

Wearable technology is the future, but questions still persist as to where on the body the most popular devices will be worn. According to some prognosticators, temporary tech tattoos will reign supreme.

While 2015 gives us all a fresh start, we can consider the Big Bang until today to be “One Universe Year.” What comes next? “And now we welcome the new […]

And if so, how does Einstein’s relativity — both special and general — cope? “If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.” -Mario Andretti The end of the week means another dip […]

It’s that time of year again: the moment you can change your life for the better. But promising to ourselves that we’ll do something specific in the future is no […]

How the demons and angels of our greatest minds advanced science. Image credit: Luis Royo Fantasy Art, via Photobucket user mikenolan78. When most people think of Einstein, they think of […]

For destruction, ice is also great, and will suffice. “Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.From what I’ve tasted of desireI hold with those who favor […]

Forget nine lives; if one interpretation of quantum mechanics is right, the cat might have an infinite number of them. Observers are the necessary, but unliked, bouncers in the elegant […]

The cosmic background radiation of the Universe once fried everything, but is now barely above absolute zero. Where did that energy go? “I think one of the coolest things you […]

While looking at Jean-Antoine Houdon’s portrait bust of Voltaire in the Louvre, sculptor Auguste Rodin remarked, “To tell the truth, there is no artistic work that requires as much penetrating insight as the bust and the portrait. … Such a work is the equivalent of a biography.” On a separate occasion, Rodin stated, “The resemblance that [the artist] should achieve is that of the soul. Only this matters.” A new, full-scale reinstallation at the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, focuses on Rodin putting those words into practice in his own portrait busts. Known for his large-scale, full-bodied works such as The Kiss, Rodin imbued an equal amount of passion into his symbolic, soulful portraits of friends, lovers, and the famous.

If you’re in the business of analyzing social networks, it’s vital to establish strategies for mapping human interaction. It’s also vital to remember that human interactions are dependent on knowledge […]

Think your job is stressful? Imagine if you had to do it strapped to the wings of a propellor plane. The Breitling Wingwalkers are a squadron of pilots and dancers […]

Imagine if a century ago free access to a high school education in the United States had been available only to the wealthiest families. Imagine, further, that anybody else who had chosen […]

In the ancient world, creativity belonged to the divine realm: when a human exhibited creative genius, he or she was seen as favored by the Gods.

If everything began with a Big Bang and is expanding, is there a center? “I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out […]

The terrible injustice of Jerrie Cobb, who deserved to be the first female astronaut, yet never made it to space at all. Image credit: © 2011 501(c)(3) Non Profit National […]

How to figure out your location on Earth with only the most primitive tools. “And you may find yourself in another part of the world.And you may find yourself behind […]

Remember all those drills you did in elementary school to shore up your handwriting? It may be time to dust off some of those skills.

In an earlier article, I talked about the fact that we learn much better when we learn with our entire body – all of our senses. I called this “embodied […]

Scientific debate is important for the questions it raises, not the early conclusions it reaches. “Even when Darwin’s teaching first made its appearance, it became clear at once that its […]

Pets Unstressing Passengers, or PUP, is a service that provides passengers at 20 major U.S. airports the opportunity to interact with trained therapy dogs.

Edinburgh is the “grey metropolis in the North.” It has been for centuries, and thanks to Unesco, the capital of Scotland will keep its dour exterior for the foreseeable future. […]

Human irrationality is nothing new. But sometimes we get a fresh reminder that the human capacity for clear thinking is hampered by all kinds of stumbling blocks, and that our […]

The founder of MIT’s Media Lab imagines a future in which information and knowledge can be delivered to the brain through the bloodstream.