In the decade since the National Academy of Sciences reported on the alarming difficulty scientists were facing in setting their own research directions—and declared “the time for action is now”—it’s only gotten harder for scientific upstarts to nab major grants, according to a perspective by… Continue reading

Due to the public outcry, however, none of the sites were excavated. It was an impasse: Genghis Khan’s tomb is archaeologically important; knowing its location is important for protecting it from illegal mining in the area. At the same time,… Continue reading

there are, at this point, numerous books testifying to the dismal state of American public education in the communities, primarily of color, that have been marginalized and abandoned by our increasingly austere system. And beyond the exposés of the moral… Continue reading

Moyers & Company host Bill Moyers delivered a message of encouragement for young progressives in the face of seemingly harrowing odds, drawing the curtain on his 44-year broadcast career on Friday. “To this new generation I say: over to you.… Continue reading

The slowdown also challenges the fundamental tenets of broken-windows policing, a controversial strategy championed by NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton. According to the theory, which first came to prominence in a 1982 article in The Atlantic, “quality-of-life” crimes like vandalism and… Continue reading

Over the past three years… more than $1 billion has been sunk into tech-driven personal finance companies…with a special emphasis on startups targeting young investors, complete with the user-friendly, low-cost, mobile-enabled features they crave (social responsibility is a plus, too)…… Continue reading

“…when we began working with community-health workers to take care to patients, the outcomes we all sought were much more likely to happen. Instead of asking “why don’t patients comply with our treatments?” we began to ask, “How can we… Continue reading

One of the extraordinary and exciting claims advanced in Evan Thompson’s new book Waking, Dreaming, Being is that some meditative practices — for example the sorts of focused attention practices developed in some Buddhist traditions — can actually be thought… Continue reading

“After the artist Georgia O’Keeffe left New York for the mesa of New Mexico, she began signing letters to friends “from the faraway nearby”. The striking oxymoron has given Rebecca Solnit the title for her new, inspired reverie, which wanders… Continue reading

I tried for years to be an atheist, then an agnostic, and, after failing at both, I thought I might become a kind of religious omnivore, cobbling bits of doctrine into a patchwork spirituality that would offer inspiration, or solace… Continue reading