Words of Wisdom — February 21, 2014

George Orwell on Liberty

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -George Orwell

bigthinkeditor

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

-George Orwell

High Culture

7 great but notoriously hard-to-finish books

These hard-to-finish books are still worth the effort.

Life

Pando, the world’s largest organism, has stopped growing

Pando is a stand of aspen in Utah that is 14,000 years old and weighs 12 million pounds. Humans threaten to end its long reign.

The Past

1,000-year-old stalagmites in Indian cave reveal a history of long, deadly droughts

The monsoon rains were not always so reliable.

The Present

The credibility of science is damaged when universities brag about themselves

The “attention economy” corrupts science.

High Culture

Was the mysterious, $450-million “Salvator Mundi” really painted by Leonardo da Vinci?

“Salvator Mundi” sold for a record-breaking $450 million in 2017, but is it really as valuable as people were led to believe?

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