Mark Twain’s posthumous autobiography reveals the author’s darker side, but will we bother to notice? Or will we prefer the “Disneyfied” history of the man as avuncular satirist?
Search Results
You searched for: Imagin today
Df s;dlkj;fdslk ;lkfdj;lfdsjlkfdj My wife laughs at my penchant for taking photographs of sculpture when we travel. It’s as if I’m trying to bring these huge stone and marble marvels […]
Last night in his State of the Union address, Obama asked Congress to send him a bill that caps carbon emissions, with the president framing the matter primarily in the […]
nn I have never had to leave my home in an evacuation from a natural disaster. I’ll put that out there right now. So, I might not fully understand the […]
Does politics today revolve around the dynamics of cable news? What might be the future of traditional network news and how should we prepare students for careers in journalism, media, […]
“Scientists are trying to regulate the weather with ambitious experiments that may even tackle global warming. Is this a great step forward?” The Independent looks at the strangest of these ideas.
In my most recent book “Physics of the Impossible,” I define three classes of impossibilities in regards to technology. Class One impossibilities are technologies that are impossible today but don’t […]
Lost is not only the title of a popular American tv series, it also describes the exasperated feeling of those viewers looking for a semblance of a plot in the […]
Almost 200 years later, you still have to just be awestruck by the magnitude of the “Great Eruption” of Tambora that produced the “Years without a Summer”.
Long dead and gone, the Rochester Subway lives on in the imagination – and on this map
After spending the past three years on the faculty at Ohio State, I remain ambivalent about the vast commercialization and big time money pouring into college athletics. Of course, it […]
Everyone is mesmerized by Apple’s ability to revolutionize the way we think about IT products. With the iPhone, for example, Apple has morphed a mere communication device into a platform […]
NOVA’s new Mt. Saint Helens special has some great footage of the volcano, but plays a little loose with the science and doomsday tone.
Large swaths of European airspace remains closed due to Eyjafjallajökull eruption – and there is no clear end in sight. UPDATE: Now with chemical composition of the ash!
If you think that a thumbs up in ancient Rome meant that the beaten gladiator would live and that a thumbs down meant death, you can thank Jean-Léon Gérôme’s 1872 […]
In chemistry, a free radical is the name for an atom or group of atoms having at least one unpaired electron, thus making it unstable and highly reactive. From the […]
This crazy scheme would have restored the prehistoric land bridge between the UK and the Continent
In an exclusive Q&A, a former pimp reveals details about how his business was organized, how much he made, and how he kept a stable of women working for him.
I always used to laugh at people who ignored the lyrics to “Every Breath You Take” by The Police and thought it was a lovely love song. If it’s about […]
James Hansen, NASA climate scientist, has argued strongly against Cap and Trade legislation, promoted the need for a carbon tax, complained of muzzling by the Bush administration, and has even […]
“Today’s college students scored 40 percent lower on a measure of empathy than their elders did,” according to a new study that demonstrates the selfish, competitive nature of the times.
“Just rejoice at this news!” So said Mrs Thatcher outside Downing Street as Prime Minister on news that the Royal Marines had recaptured the uninhabited, ice bound island of South […]
While Thomas Eakins’ masterpiece The Gross Clinic undergoes a facelift on the east coast in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s An Eakins Masterpiece Restored: Seeing The Gross Clinic Anew (my […]
n Some maps capture the imagination and inspire so much imitation that they become icons. Harry Beck’s 1930s map of the London Underground is one of the best examples (here […]
One supercontinent, ringing the equator
Imagine for the moment a classic work of modern art as pictured above. When a curator takes a heavy and bulky wooden frame, places it around the complex and uncertain […]
Ever since Lafayette, some connection between America and France, however tenuous, has existed. One of the strongest bonds between the two countries is the American love of French art. When […]
Jenny Holzer works in words. Her art flows from the endless river of language that surrounds us. She dips her hands into that river and pulls out a tiny handful […]
This map, showing the surface and population of selected world cities, is outdated by over two decades. It was published in the Dallas Morning News on 9 June 1983, since […]
In the history of the Universe, life—and human life in particular—has not been around for very long. But University of Michigan theoretical astrophysicist Katie Freese believes it’s possible that life […]