In The News

Dear Snow-Trolls: Winter Weather Does Not Refute Global Warming

Chris Mooney November 28, 2014
After a period of cool weather or heavy snow, those ignorant on science and research proclaim that climate change cannot possibly be true. “Despite the fact that weather and climate are not the same thing – climate is the statistical average of weather – extremely cold winters do appear to shift climate beliefs,” writes Chris Mooney for the Washington Post. He goes on to explain that cold weather...

Meet the Entrepreneurs at the Forefront of the Space Race

Carren Jao October 22, 2014
The world is entering a new Space Age as entrepreneurs spearhead advances in space technology and travel. This renewed Space Age is attributed to a greater commercial role in the space industry; in the United States, NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, adopted a decentralized market strategy in 2005, and interest in the space industry has exploded since with the expansion of...

On a Shoestring, India Sends Orbiter to Mars on Its First Try

Gardiner Harris September 26, 2014
All of India is celebrating the grand achievement of its spacecraft reaching Mars’s orbit. Fewer than half of 51 attempts by nations to reach Mars have worked, and India is alone with success at the first try – and on a low budget at that. Launching Mangalyaan, Hindi for Mars craft, cost $74 million. “An ebullient Prime Minister Narendra Modi was on hand at the Indian Space Research Organization’...

Ebola Is Rapidly Mutating As It Spreads Across West Africa

Michaeleen Doucleff September 1, 2014
An international team – 20 researchers working around the clock – sequenced DNA from 78 human subjects infected with Ebola and report the virus is mutating quickly. “The Ebola genome is incredibly simple,” writes Michaeleen Doucleff for NPR in the United States, based on an interview with a lead author on the study, Pardis Sabeti. computational biologist at Harvard University. Ebola has seven...

The Science Behind ISIS Savagery: 5 Ways Humans Become Hardwired for Violence

Ian Robertson August 20, 2014
Islamic State militants stun the world with senseless acts of violence, with the public beheading of a journalist covering civil war in Syria as the most recent example. Such atrocities are not limited to Islamic extremists and have been waged by throughout history by many other religious fanatics and even governments, reminds Ian Robertson, professor of psychology in an essay for the Telegraph....

The Social Laboratory

Shane Harris August 4, 2014
Big data – “emails, phone logs, Internet searches, airline reservations, hotel bookings, credit card transactions, medical reports” – can point to patterns in motivation and behavior. Eager to expand such programs for security purposes, some US officials envy Singapore’s law-and-order attitudes and the uninterrupted power of the People's Action Party since 1959: “They are drawn not just to...

Google to Spread the Web With $1 Billion Worth of Satellites

Kris Holt July 4, 2014
Google is in a hurry to extend its reach and connect the world to the internet by installing a fleet of satellites. The company that started by providing a popular search engine is investing in a range of other technologies, including alternative energies and driverless vehicles. The company also aids internet use with Project Loon, a network of high-altitude balloons, quick to build and...