Surprising Science — July 11, 2010

Is Your Life Toxic?

“The world we live in is so overrun with environmental pollutants that it is next to impossible to keep oneself truly healthy.” Sadhbh Walshe at The Guardian laments the lack of regulation.

bigthinkeditor

“The world we live in is so overrun with environmental pollutants that it is next to impossible to keep oneself truly healthy.” Sadhbh Walshe at The Guardian laments the lack of regulation. “A report released in the US earlier this year by the President’s Cancer Panel concluded that the risk of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated; that exposure to potential carcinogens is widespread; that the 80,000 or so chemicals used by millions of Americans in their daily lives (mostly inadvertently) are largely unregulated and that, to a ‘disturbing extent’, babies are being born ‘pre-polluted’.”

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.

Up Next

Technology & Innovation

The Coming Trade War

“When the world’s productive capacities exceed the buying power of the world’s consumers, every government wants to increase exports and discourage imports. That spells trade war.”