Daniel Rourke /stream

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Since the early 1990s Adam Curtis has made a number of serial documentaries and films for the BBC using a playful mix of journalistic reportage and a wide range of avant-garde…

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For medical researchers and biochemists, simulation software will vastly speed the early stages of screening for new compounds. And for molecular biologists, models that are of sufficient accuracy will yield new…

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Last Wednesday, with relatively little fanfare, Google introduced a new technology called Google Knowledge Graph. Type in “François Hollande,” and you are offered a capsule history (with links) to his children,…

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Ideal for the commute, the lunch-hour, the stolen moment: shortness necessitates the perfect user-friendly format, arguably suited to the fast paced nature of everyday contemporary urban living. At the same time…

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It may be the foundation of modern biology, but fewer than 40 percent of Americans say they believe in the theory of evolution. While frustrated scientists sometimes blame religion for this…

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Archaeologists and other scientists report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science that excavations show hunter-gatherers were living at the Buttermilk Creek site and making projectile points, blades, choppers and other…

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As part of our research on explanatory journalism, we’re interviewing experts in fields outside journalism about their approaches to explaining complex systems to non-specialtists. Our first expert is cognitive linguist George Lakoff,…

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Often thought of as a modern disease, cancer has always been with us. Where scientists disagree is on how much it has been amplified by the sweet and bitter fruits of…

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Just a quick fyi: If you head over to the Harvard University Press web site, you can grab a free copy of Marcus Boon’s new book, In Praise of Copying, which…

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Radio receives little critical attention. Of the various methods for communicating ideas and emotions—books, newspapers, visual art, music, film, television, the Web—radio may be the least discussed, debated, understood. This is…

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What bad writing has to do with war casualties and traffic over North America. It’s no secret we have a data visualization fetish, but that’s not just because we like looking…

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It turns out the Machiguenga — whose number system goes: one, two, three, many — are not alone in their thinking. Most people from non-Western cultures introduced to the Ultimatum Game…

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It may sound like the plot of a Dan Brown novel, but an academic at the University of Manchester claims to have cracked a mathematical and musical code in the works…

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Since the early 1990s Adam Curtis has made a number of serial documentaries and films for the BBC using a playful mix of journalistic reportage and a wide range of avant-garde…

Bookmark

Last Wednesday, with relatively little fanfare, Google introduced a new technology called Google Knowledge Graph. Type in “François Hollande,” and you are offered a capsule history (with links) to his children,…

Bookmark

A chorus of smart, modern minds is rising over the hills of anthropology that the ancient Neanderthals of Europe weren't anywhere nearly as dumb, insufferable and unrecognizable as everyone thought all…

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For a long time, it was the folks who downloaded music or movies illegally that faced the wrath of government prosecutors. So the unsealing of an indictment today against Aaron Swartz,…

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Ideal for the commute, the lunch-hour, the stolen moment: shortness necessitates the perfect user-friendly format, arguably suited to the fast paced nature of everyday contemporary urban living. At the same time…

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Archaeologists and other scientists report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science that excavations show hunter-gatherers were living at the Buttermilk Creek site and making projectile points, blades, choppers and other…

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Gleick makes his case in a sweeping survey that covers the five millenniums of humanity’s engagement with information, from the invention of writing in Sumer to the elevation of information to…

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Often thought of as a modern disease, cancer has always been with us. Where scientists disagree is on how much it has been amplified by the sweet and bitter fruits of…

Bookmark

Just a quick fyi: If you head over to the Harvard University Press web site, you can grab a free copy of Marcus Boon’s new book, In Praise of Copying, which…

Bookmark

Radio receives little critical attention. Of the various methods for communicating ideas and emotions—books, newspapers, visual art, music, film, television, the Web—radio may be the least discussed, debated, understood. This is…

Bookmark

What bad writing has to do with war casualties and traffic over North America. It’s no secret we have a data visualization fetish, but that’s not just because we like looking…

Bookmark

It may sound like the plot of a Dan Brown novel, but an academic at the University of Manchester claims to have cracked a mathematical and musical code in the works…

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An unusual study looks at the food portions in artistic depictions of the Last Supper throughout history. The apostles have eaten better and better over the years, scholars say. The Christian…