I thought I’d add a few new wrinkles to the blog for 2011. If you look at the top left corner of the home page, you’ll see I added a new page called “Regular features.” It contains headlines that you’ll see recurring in the blog. Feel free to send me your nominations/suggestions for any of…Continue Reading…
Julia Whitty asks: Are prophecies of conservation doom self-fulfilling? Summarizing a recent paper by Australian researchers, Whitty writes: the authors suggest that relentless communication of an impending mass extinction is failing to motivate politicians, policy makers, or the public, and is likely to be counterproductive. Hmm, perhaps this will resonate with the climate doom crowd.
I’m going to nitpick this lament by James Fallows: One of the basic functions of journalism is to say: This is true, and that is false. There are other functions, but establishing bedrock “world is round / sun rises in the east / 1+ 1 = 2” verities is a big one. In today’s political…Continue Reading…
Imagine a future where thousands of streams of real-world data would be brought together to reveal previously unknown patterns and trends in human society. What might this new kind of computing marvel do? Ultimately the simulator could help detect impending crises like public health emergencies and instabilities in the financial system while serving as a…Continue Reading…
Politico digs them out of the GOP closet.
This expedition of New York’s subterranean city is pretty cool. No sightings of an alien race, though.
The battle (over global warming) between competing conservative evangelical camps is one to watch in 2011. It’s been brewing for years. In 2005, Richard Cizik, who was then the political lobbyist for the conservative-leaning National Association of Evangelicals, and talking up the notion of environmental stewardship to its 30 million members, found himself in the…Continue Reading…