Guest Thinkers — August 16, 2010

Yale Enviro 360: Obama’s Plan for the Energy Economy

What’s a vision of the future of science journalism? Consider Yale Environment 360. The university and foundation-sponsored online magazine and social media site is updated daily and weekly, publishing feature reporting, analysis, and longer opinion articles by leading journalists, scientists, and policy experts. It also hosts a daily blog tracking environmental and science issues. Longer articles feature a participatory user comment section.

Consider the value of today’s featured article at Environment 360, a lengthy preview of Obama’s energy plan. It’s written by Keith Schneider, a former national correspondent at the NY Times and now the Communications Director at the Apollo Alliance, an energy advocacy group. The article provides expert context and a point of view, information about the energy agenda in the new Administration that is missing from most commercial media outlets.

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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