Surprising Science — May 6, 2009

Welcome to the New 1-2-10 Media Interface

Nick Bilton, a designer, user interface specialist, technologist, journalist, hardware hacker, who is currently the design integration editor and user interface specialist at The New York Times and The Times Research & Development Lab, has a few things to say about media integration.

Bilton was featured in that cool New York magazine story about tech renegades at the New York Times. He also works as an adjunct professor in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU where he teaches a course on one-two-ten design interaction. The idea is to tell stories for the one-foot distance between you and your phone, the two-foot distance between you and your computer and the ten-foot distance between you and your television. Here’s Nick with a video explanation.

How does hardware relate to the future of news? from Knight Pulse on Vimeo.

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

Youth Leadership Now

Our world needs youth leaders in our communities now from ages 14-25. We need to harness their energy and ideas, give the tools effective leadership and then let them lead! Our leaders in the US congress, corporations, and non-profits need term limits to ensure that the torches of leadership pass smoothly. This will allow our elders to Think Big about new projects as the pass existing programs onto others.