Search Results

I wrote a short piece detailing the brilliance of mature story-telling, this time in a video game. Spec Ops: The Line is a military-shooter that is aware of itself, the […]

The debate over the fiscal cliff has spawned a multitude of suggestions for reforming the tax system, including my own.  One possible reason for the wide range of proposals, even from mainstream economists, is that the recommendations of standard economic theory may be very different from what the American economy actually needs today.  Here are two views of taxation, from the theoretical and realistic standpoints – can you find a happy medium between them?

While strife is bound to happen between different religious communities, there is no occasion to apologize. Alain de Botton says it’s awkward to apologize, after all. “This could lead to […]

Those windshields with embedded displays may be here sooner than you think: A team of Rice University researchers has come up with flexible high-capacity memory chips made of silicon oxide and graphene.

The 2012 election was game changing for America, producing groundbreaking shifts involving social issues, such as the legalization of same-sex marriage, and recreational marijuana use, and historical milestones for women […]

Schools that have been burdened by demands to “make every minute count” are considering the benefits to learning that can come from simply giving the kids a break.

While the desire to tax churches is not new, it seems as far from reality as possible at this moment. As has been commented, no atheist could possibly hope to […]

In an illuminating piece, the Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein traces the trajectory of the constitutional argument against the individual mandate from preposterous, fringe position to a real, greatly-feared legal possibility. The concept […]

Scientists combating the effects of climate change, such as rising water levels and eroding coastlines, have found natural ally in the mangrove.

Twenty years after Hurricane Andrew, the third iteration of the “Wall of Wind” hurricane simulator provides scientists and construction industry experts with new ways to measure and improve on building material integrity.

Using NASA’s Kepler space telescope, astronomers have found an alien solar system that exhibits the same structure as ours, with planets rotating on a single plane around their parent star. 

In general, I avoid free literature thrown my way on subways and street corners. Recently passing by a stack of cheaply printed books while leaving Samosa House in Culver City, […]

My latest column has just been posted on AlterNet, Right-Wing Religions of the World Unite to Oppress Women and Gays More Ruthlessly. In it, I write about the strange phenomenon […]

This article was originally published on AlterNet. When you hear the word “interfaith,” you might think of people from different religions working together to do charitable deeds: running a soup […]

We tend to think of the brain as a giant lump of gray matter, as a marvelously complex structure that controls consciousness and intelligence. But what if the human brain is […]

The Uruguayan capital does not have a metro system – but it does have a metro map

Scientists have discovered that animal organisms can support the existence of photosynthetic chloroplasts, so could the human body one day make its energy from the sun?

Last week, four third-party U.S. presidential candidates had a debate in Chicago. As is usual in American politics, third-party debates tend to be all over the map: a mixture of […]

For a couple of days, I was inclined to buy the theory that Obama won the election because his campaign was so “metric driven.”  Metric driven in this case seems […]

As you probably know by now, my friend Greta Christina was diagnosed with cancer last week, and she’s having surgery today. In the grand scheme of things, it could have […]

A recently-released line of state-of-the-art mainframes proves that, all these years later, IBM is still going strong in the Internet age.

According to The Independent, a recent Yale-Moscow State University study has found “a modest but statistically significant familiality and heritability element to creative writing.” The conclusion was based on an evaluation […]

MIT theoretical physicists are working to carry the structure of crystals, such as table salt, into the fourth dimension of time. The result could be a computer than runs infinitely into the future. 

Have you ever sliced up a human brain? I’ll be honest:  I’ve only done it once.  I don’t remember much about it–it was a long time ago.  But I recall […]

If we accept Bruce Bueno de Mesquita’s claim that remaining in power is the primary motivation of our leaders, then the political structure of a nation is the single most important determinant of how responsive its leaders will be to its people’s needs.  

Our prehistoric ancestors are the ones who did the heavy mental lifting for which we owe our expanded frontal cortexes. So who has the right brain for today?  

I’ve written some overarching thoughts about last week’s presidential election, but I wanted to dwell on one of its more fascinating aspects: the extent to which the Republican party was […]

As Yale’s Ainissa Ramirez explains in this new video, the harsh Russian winter, combined with the chemical properties of tin, may have led to “the greatest wardrobe malfunction in history.”

What’s The Big Idea? Scientists have given animals consciousness. Not through complex manipulation of the brain or through genetic manipulation, but by publicly acknowledging the consensus, for the first time […]

            This blog often talks about risks that we fret over too much. Time to talk about one we worry about too little; the air we breath…indoors. For a number […]