What’s the Big Idea? On May 20, Pakistan shut down Twitter for eight hours after the microblogging site refused to remove tweets that linked to a page encouraging people to post pictures […]
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Although some counterintuitive thinking was necessary to realize that planet GJ 1214b is full of water, scientists now believe there is a greater hope for extraterrestrial life than ever before.
By embracing new Web and mobile technologies, green energy companies are creating a new Cleanweb movement in which formerly expensive alternative energy sources – such as solar power – are […]
One of the major barriers to hydrogen fuel production has been its production cost. Now, scientists want to use nanotechnology to split water atoms and power a generation of cars.
Lighten up, says Bill Nye aka The Science Guy. The idea is to get people to embrace science, not force it.
The Red Planet will be the closest distance to Earth in over two years tonight in an event called The Mars Opposition. That means martian features and polar caps will […]
Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory take on claims about the Mayan calendar and the end of the world, explaining away all the scenarios for a post-2012 apocalypse.
What’s the Big Idea? In her essay “Outfox Them!” in the March 8th edition of the London Review of Books, Sheila Fitzpatrick, an Australian-American historian of Soviet Russia, tells an […]
Tribalism is pervasive, and it controls a lot of our behavior, readily overriding reason.
NASA scientists have discovered a thin strip of oxygen in the atmosphere of Dione, one of Saturn’s 60 moons. It seems to be a rare case of oxygen existing without the support of live organisms.
Brain imaging studies show that every time we learn a new task, we’re changing our brain by expanding our neural network.
Via Slacktivist, I came across a post on the Christian blog Exploring Our Matrix that asks a perfectly reasonable question: Why Doesn’t the Bible Contain Superior Medical Advice? …you will […]
Craig Taylor’s Londoners is a humbling reminder that, for all the restless energy we put into categorizing, labeling, and compartmentalizing the world, the only way to understand people and places as they really are is to shut up and listen.
The largest solar storm since 2005 has engulfed the Earth, surrounding it in solar radiation capable of disrupting satellite communication. This time, however, the Earth seems to have lucked out.
Two American physicists have put forward a new theory of how the first planets formed which reverses many aspects of the old model left unchanged for nearly 40 years.
The ancient practice of forecasting the weather has evolved frustratingly slow over the course of thousands of years. Yet today we are employing super-computers to predict the weather.
In New York City, Susan Miller is an institution, a sage of the media and fashion worlds. As the astrologist for Elle magazine, best-selling author, and founder of AstrologyZone.com (est. […]
We expect works of art to enlighten us, and we expect science to enlighten us — yet the two fields are frequently regarded as separate, distinct entities which we respond to using different areas of the brain. Are those distinctions are arbitrary?
The international body that controls decisions over how to count time may decouple atomic clocks from the movement of the Earth around the Sun. That could mean problems down the line.
The space agency’s Biosciences Division has created a medical tool for astronauts that stands to benefit millions of Earth-bound patients by improving a wide range of treatments.
With its space shuttle program grounded, NASA has found a great way to stay relevant with its daily release of images and videos, which we are happy to serve up to […]
Abandoning circular growth, the Russian capital has started sprouting limbs across the surrounding countryside
The largest solar storm in seven years is expected to peak tomorrow, threatening GPS signals and the electrical grid. The cloud of particles streaming from the sun is headed for […]
It’s Sunday morning, and I’m writing this on the train from Washington, D.C. back to New York. I’m exhausted, washed out, and my calves are two knots of pain from […]
French physicists have successfully prevented instabilities from developing in plasma needed to run a fusion reactor, a potential source of endless and clean energy for the planet.
What is the Big Idea? The working conditions at Foxconn is about to get a lot better. At least that is the idea behind purported reforms announced last week, some of […]
A satirical take on the financial crisis of the 1720s
No single online social network will ever replace Facebook, says Alexis Madrigal. Social networks will build on top of each other and people will belong to several networks at once.
If you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute. So goes the saying that is loosely attributed to Mark Twain. The same cannot be said of the […]