Guest Thinkers — August 16, 2010

The Fmr. House Science Chair on Framing Science

On May 3, former House Science Committee chair Sherwood Boehlert gave the distinguished AAAS Carey Lecture. It recently came to our attention that Boehlert spent a significant chunk of the speech commenting on our Framing Science thesis published at Science and elaborated upon at the Washington Post.

We’ve now posted a reply to Boehlert over at “Speaking Science 2.0.” Check it out. We’ve both long admired Boehlert’s work and his ideas, and see it as a terrific opportunity to further push discussion along.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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