Guest Thinkers — March 16, 2011

“The Warmth of Other Suns” Wins National Book Critics Circle Award

Isabel Wilkerson’s masterful history of the Great Migration won a National Book Critics Circle Award last week, a richly deserved honor. You can read my review of “The Warmth of Other Suns” at TAPPED.

[Photo credit, image of a California sunrise: Gwyn Fisher, Creative Commons.]

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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Guest Thinkers

Earthquake Survivors In Japan Get Their Stories Translated Online

Eyewitness accounts and twitter messages on the ground in Japan reveal rising desperation and frustration with the media.