Politics & Current Affairs — February 1, 2010

Yemen’s Radical Transformation

Until 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day, Yemen was barely on the Western public’s radar. Ever since, it has found itself the nexus of a raging debate. How large is the terrorist presence there? What has fanned the spread of radical Islam within its borders? Will the country become a third front in the war on terror? In a Big Think interview this week, Princeton University Yemen expert Gregory Johnsen provides detailed answers.

Dissecting Yemen’s volatile political history, Johnsen explains the “three layers of crisis” facing the nation and why they form the foundation for a thriving Al-Qaeda. He also addresses President Obama’s pledge not to put U.S. “boots on the ground” in the country, claiming that to break it would be “catastrophic” and assessing the alternatives the U.S. must consider.

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.

▸

7 min

—

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.

Up Next

Politics & Current Affairs

Who’s Afraid of Health Care Reform?

The conventional wisdom is that Republican Scott Brown’s upset victory in the special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s vacant Senate seat was a referendum on health care reform. In a […]