Guest Thinkers — February 22, 2011

Paul Saffo: Looking Into the Future

For anyone interested in learning “what’s next,” Paul Saffo’s keynote address at the World Innovation Forum in New York City earlier this week presented a number of tantalizing previews. According to Saffo, “What’s Next” is not a souped-up “semantic Web” — instead, it’s the wide-scale distribution of sensor technology and RFID chips and the emergence of biology as the dominant scientific paradigm of our time. According to Saffo, sensor technology is ready to disrupt the world in unknown and fascinating ways — and not just if you happen to own a pair of Nike running shoes and an iPod nano. “Put RFID chips and sensors on wheels, and you have a robot.”

Photo courtesy of Dov Friedmann – PhotographybyDov.com

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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