Guest Thinkers — February 22, 2011

Cool People Doing Cool Things: Craig Venter’s new biofuels project

Sequence the human genome. Been there, done that. Genomics pioneer Craig Venter is now moving on to a colossal new project to develop and produce new second-generation biofuels from algae. Thanks to a $600 million investment from ExxonMobil, Venter and his company, Synthetic Genomics, is now at the forefront of the green fuels revolution. According to ExxonMobil, the project to develop biofuels produced by algae could result in an economically

viable, low net-carbon emission transportation fuel sometime in the near future.

In other words, get ready for a future in which your choice at the local gas pump is between “Regular, Unleaded, and Super-Algae.

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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