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I recently submitted a final draft of a book chapter that reviews much of the research that has fueled the framing science debate. The chapter is set to appear in […]

Could recycling actually be hurting the environment? In a recent policy paper, “Recycling Myths Revisited”, Professor Daniel K. Benjamin, a senior fellow at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) […]

Readers of this blog should find the arguments in Tom Friedman’s column today familiar. On climate change, Friedman argues that it’s time to switch focus from cap and trade to […]

Scientists are the most trusted spokespeople in America. Surveys show that they are the most admired profession and among institutions, only the military scores higher in terms of public confidence. […]

Basketball games, elections and other head-to-head contests seem to affect the testosterone of people who care about them. Some studies have found that testosterone production goes down in fans of […]

Did volcanoes that erupt kill all the Permian dinosaurs? FOX News thinks they did! And in real news, the Turrialba eruption may not lead much. UPDATE: and now we have a field report of the Turrialba event.

Should you be buying volcano insurance if you live in certain parts of Australia? Well, probably not just yet.

I am in Venice, Italy this week to participate in an expert workshop on research in science communication held at the historic Venice Institute of Science & the Arts (above). […]

Over the past few weeks, we’ve beenmentioning the James Dyson Award, effectively the world’s most prestigious student-design competition. Yesterday, the winner of the award’s U.S. round was announced: The Copenhagen […]

Richard Kerr’s recent news feature at Science magazine offers a compelling look at the many communication challenges on climate change, especially at a time of apparent “climate fatigue.” As Roger […]

Over at the Intersection, Chris generated a discussion of what issues might be the next big science policy debates. I’d like to turn the question in a slightly different direction […]

On June 15, the day I moved from Columbus to DC, I listened during my drive out here to a few hours of Rush Limbaugh. On his program he discussed […]

Last week, in a history book moment, an airplane was flown straight through a day-night cycle running on nothing – nothing – but the sun’s rays. Imagine the quiet, up […]

MIT researchers are advising the government to use natural gas as a low-carbon bridge to a cleaner energy society, but they warn renewables must be developed lest gas become a bridge to nowhere.

In rural India, over half of all households don’t have electricity. To light households and power commercial equipment, villages use kerosene lanterns, which are both expensive and environmentally harmful. But […]

Traffic perhaps the greatest environmental liability and biggest daily annoyance of urban epicenters. Between the number of cars in the streets, the tendency of ground-level public transportation vehicles to jam […]

“It’s a provocative question, but that’s exactly what a group of health care specialists on the other side of the pond are recommending.” The British Medical Journals draws parallels to neglect.

Revolutions in communication technology and digital media have transformed almost every sector of society, altering the way we express ideas, participate in public debates, connect with others, entertain ourselves, and […]

Catherine Rampell, in the New York Times’ Economix blog, noticed something interesting about the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest report on consumer prices. Overall, consumer prices grew 0.3% in July […]

One orthodoxy has long dominated neuropsychology: the brain controls the mind, which has no independent existence outside of the chemical reactions and patterns which constantly fire inside our brains. Neuro-biologists have long held that the brain exclusively drives the mind, and that the mind serves only the individual self.

That’s the question raised by National Post columnist Vanessa Farquharson. While male writers and bloggers focus on a Pandora’s box of looming catastrophe, a storyline that likely leads to a […]

The struggle between BP and the U.S. government takes place amid a much larger conflict — over whether democratic capitalism is the best political-social-economic system, writes David Brooks.

American Today, the weekly newspaper for American University, ran this feature on last week’s AU Forum and public radio broadcast of “The Climate Change Generation: Youth, Media, and Politics in […]

Solar Impulse, a Swiss venture launched by explorer/innovator/engineer/psychologist/businessmen Betrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, is shooting beyond the moon and aiming for the sun. Their mission: build a solar aircraft that […]

Independent bookstores were supposed to be dead, succumbing to Amazon, Kindle, and big box chains Barnes Noble and Borders.  As early as 1998, Hollywood in You’ve Got Mail was predicting […]

The U.S. Navy has successfully tested a sea-bound laser weapon, ushering in a new era of warfare. In light of this news, Big Think presents a timeline of the history of laser technology. 

As I wrote last week, deliberative forums and town hall-type meetings are one of the major innovations in science communication and engagement. Whether forums are focused on climate change or […]

Back in January, when a coalition of Big Industry CEOs and environmental groups got together to urge Congress and the President to pass “cap and trade” legislation on global warming […]

“In the final analysis, governments generally don’t embark on policies that may well mean their political demise sooner rather than later.”

Computing speed doubles once every year and a half, and so does the electrical efficiency of processors, from laptops to servers. The pattern makes our computing lives more convenient.