Technology & Innovation — July 30, 2010

Inside WikiLeaks

“I’m sure that Julian Assange is now regarded as one of the very most dangerous men and he should be quite proud of that,” says Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers.

bigthinkeditor

“I’m sure that Julian Assange is now regarded as one of the very most dangerous men and he should be quite proud of that,” says Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers. “WikiLeaks is a powerful global force, but if there is an HQ you will not find it in Melbourne, New York or London. Its spiritual home is Iceland. ‘It is a safe haven more for journalism in general, for in particular investigative journalism and also for people that, for example, risk their lives from China or Sri Lanka to publish information about the situation, might risk being tortured or killed and their story also vanishing,’ Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a member of Iceland’s parliament, says.”

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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