They Don't Want to Know About It
Some chimpanzees have been found to grieve for their dead. Does this mean they understand their own mortality? More »
Advertisement
Edward Tenner is a historian of technology and culture. He was a founding advisor of Smithsonian's Lemelson Center and holds a Ph.D in European history. More
Some chimpanzees have been found to grieve for their dead. Does this mean they understand their own mortality? More »
Inconspicuous luxury watches are the new status symbols on Wall Street More »
What would the Founding Father have to say about the redesigned $100 bill? More »
Some European conservatives are claiming the air traffic shutdown, like the swine flu vaccination panic, was an overreaction. More »
Everyone wonders about extraterrestrial life, but what about the bizarre creatures who live deep in our oceans? More »
Could Apple's content approval regulations be a legal liability for the company? More »
For some acolytes, Apple's stranglehold on the iPad has caused the company's fall from grace. More »
Regulators kept flagging the owner of the Upper Branch Mine for safety hazards. But everyone seems to have got used to the warnings--until it was too late. More »
Generational stereotypes are the only remaining politically correct ones. The Washington Post ponders a new Pew Research Center report: The influx of a bulge of workers into the economy, especially at a time of starkly higher unemployment, has spawned an industry of pollsters, authors and consultants seeking to explain the young generation. The titles of books about millennials appear to reveal a certain condescension from older generations: "The Dumbest… More »
The Financial Times reports:Europe's luxury goods makers have warned that numbers of skilled craftsmen are dwindling rapidly as suppliers source more production from Asia. . . .Guy Salter, . . . spokesman for the alliance [of national craft industry societies], said the loss of skills was a big concern. "All young people want to be designers and very few, makers. We want to try to change that by promoting craftsmanship in the luxury sector," he said.Of course… More »
Studies find that children are ditching dolls for high-tech gadgets. What effect will this have on the next generation? More »
For those who'd like immortality Woody Allen style -- "by not dying" -- the Swedish artist team Bigert & Bergström now offer a link to a fearless video feature More »
Elite architects seem to go on and on. If The Washington Post's Philip Kennicott is right, Frank Gehry's Eisenhower Memorial in Washington will be another hit, if possibly a controversial one. A new Ike Age appears to be dawning. Gehry's admiration shines through in a way that a much younger architect probably could not express: Gehry, 81, said he does not often enter the sort of design competition that led to his selection for the project, which is estimated to… More »
Times (London) Higher Education reports research showing that bad weather influences student decisions -- positively! More »
Kids who grew up in the post-Sputnik 1950s and 1960s thrilled to read about the radical expected aircraft designs of the 21st century. We're ten years into that century. Now they, their children, and grandchildren can read instead about the persistence of the designs of the 1950s and 1960s while pondering the demise of the Concorde seven years ago.Star witness: the survival of the U-2, 55 years after its first flight. As The New York Times reports:Because of… More »
The Texas Board of Education's debates on pre-college texts and curricula have overshadowed a more significant, even a voter-approved, constitutional amendment to upgrade its higher education system.As The Chronicle of Higher Education reports (subscription required but available through many libraries):As esteemed public universities in California and other states have faced major budget cuts, resulting in layoffs, furloughs, and enrollment caps, Texas is… More »
Washington, D.C.'s new German-American Heritage Museum brings back memories and raises questions about how people of German descent feel about their culture More »
When the social psychologist Stanley Milgram died of a heart attack at 51 in 1984, his experiments two decades earlier on obedience to authority were still acclaimed -- and their ethics debated. Was his health a victim of the reaction unleashed by the inconvenient truths his studies had revealed? Fascination continues after a quarter century, most recently in France, where Milgram's work has inspired a new television documentary. As The Washington Post… More »
War -- what is it good for? Well, preserving the world's beaches, for one thing. More »
