Guest Thinkers

When the Cold War ran red hot, the United States government reached for any weapon available against the “Red Menace.” It’s hard to believe today, when federal funding for the […]

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 […]

Give them stories. Let them read Henry James, Edith Wharton, Sherwood Anderson, Theodor Dreiser. Let them read Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald. And Styron, Roth, Didion, Bellow, Franzen. Open the treasure […]

Solar panels for the home and alternative fuel for transportation are two of the most widespread threads of innovation in sustainability, but they are rarely if ever discussed in parallel. […]

Recently, a nearby earth-like twin was found in outer space—perhaps capable of harboring life. The planet is called Gliese 581g, and is 20 light years from Earth (about 120 trillion […]

Readers in the Washington, DC, area are likely to find the upcoming event on Monday, October 11, of strong interest. Roger Pielke Jr. is one of the top analysts of […]

 I used to work for a couple of small mortgage lenders a few years ago. We probably closed somewhere between 150 and 200 purchase and refi loans a month at […]

In California, 2/3 of voters still remain relatively unaware of Proposition 23, a ballot measure backed by out-of-state oil and gas companies that would end California’s regulation of greenhouse gas […]

“Wasting food isn’t just bad in its own right, it also represents a profound waste of energy.” Scientific American reports on the amount of oil needed to support the food supply.

“Americans are mixing it up a good deal more than they have in the past.” The first comprehensive sex study in 20 years says the American sexual repertoire has expanded.

I just wanted to pass a quick new news from Colombia: Nevado del Ruiz has been placed on yellow alert status (spanish) by the Colombian survey, INGEOMINAS. The reports (spanish) describe increased […]

Biologist Robert G. Edwards has won the Nobel Prize for his work on in vitro fertilization. Edwards and his late colleague, gynecologist Patrick Steptoe, helped an infertile woman give birth […]

At the Washington Post on Sunday, columnist Dana Milbank published an excerpt from his forthcoming book on Glenn Beck, tracking the commentator’s reinvention of history and his strategic use of […]

There has been a wave of articles over the last few weeks out on the geoblogosphere on columnar jointing in lavas – with many, many great images of columns seen […]

If you  are planning on holding a large political rally in Washington, and you want to do it right, you really need to buy a TV network first, so you […]

At The New Yorker this week, Ryan Lizza provides an account of why the Senate cap and trade legislation failed, told mostly from the perspective of staffers working for Senate […]

It’s possible to see procrastination as the quintessential modern problem. It’s also a surprisingly costly one. Some of us lose money and risk blindness because of it.rn

Last month, design and innovation firm fuseproject introduced WattStation — a revolutionary electric vehicle charging station for public spaces, developed in partnership with GE. Leveraging the technology and its critical […]

An companion piece to Indian novelist Pankaj Mishra’s elegant Times Op-Ed on India is Isaac Chotiner’s essay in the Times Book Review on (literary magazine)Granta’s Pakistan Issue. Chotiner references Pakistani […]

“How do drones change the nations that use them?” Does America need to consider the morality of increasing use of unmanned drone attacks into Pakistan?

“When Hunter S. Thompson applied for a job at the Vancouver Sun in 1958, the famously wild and inventive author wrote a cover letter that broke all the rules.”

The New Republic explains why Palestine is unlikely to renounce violence as a political tool, give up on current negotiations or demand the right to vote in Israel.

It’s sad to watch someone drift over to the dark side. I’m not talking about Anakin Skywalker. I’m talking about renowned Guardian art blogger extraordinaire Jonathan Jones. I don’t know […]

When I first launched my blog in March, you may remember me writing about a blog post entitled “IMAX Hubble 3D & The James Webb Space Telescope.” The new telescope […]

I got an email yesterday from Pubit!, a new service that will allow writers to publish their own ebooks and offer them for sale on Barnes & Noble’s website, announcing […]

Ed Balls may not have been elected Labour leader, but over the past few months he has certainly emerged from under Gordon Brown’s wing. Tribalistic, pugilistic, Balls is something the […]

CNN anchor Rick Sanchez was fired after letting loose an anti-semitic tirade against Jews in the media in general, and Daily Show host Jon Stewart in particular. Here’s a transcript […]

At The Guardian site, Martin Robbins has nailed everything that’s wrong with science news on “general interest” websites in this pitch-perfect parody. It gets at the heart of the uneasy […]

“Instead of the vast expanses of leisure time imagined by science fiction writers, we now get one hour less sleep per night than our parents’ generation did.”

“When Mao Tse-Tung launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966, one of the principal targets of attack were intellectuals whose death warrants were signed by fellow intellectuals in the West.”