July 28, 2013

Meet the Youngest Chess Master in the U.S.

Carissa Yip has been playing chess for one-third of her life, that is, three years. In this extremely short amount of time the 9 year old Massachusetts girl has reached the level of Master in chess, the youngest person in the U.S. to reach that distinction since electronic records have been kept.

Find out more here.

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.

Up Next

Surprising Science

Neuroscientists Succeed in Planting False Memories in the Brain

Using a technique called optogenetics, which can activate and cause brain cells to fire by shining light on them, neuroscientists at MIT have successfully activated false memories in the brain.