For most of its life, Olin College of Engineering in scenic Needham, Massachusettes was free.  All students received a 100% scholarship.  In a sad reflection of the times, though, this has…

Over at Bioephemera, Jessica Palmer agree with Language Log’s Mark Liberman in his admonition against the use of “generic plurals” in science reporting. Language Log: This would lead us to avoid…

One sometimes gets frustrated reading our Daily/Sunday Telegraph.  So many of their columnists, and those who comment on blogs, think that "Global Warming" is a man-made political scam, a…

On this day of celebration, let us remember and honor the invaluable contributions of squid to pirate lore and culture: - Davy Jones and the Kraken in Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest. As…

Ahoy maties, how the time flies. It is "Talk Like A Pirate Day" once again and the science communities be awash in pirattitude. Or not, perhaps 'tis just me. But if it's not just me, and the little…

The Economist reported that in early 2007, for the first time in history, more humans lived in cities than in the countryside. We are now a different species, in terms of the environmental…

Testing the inputand the Equal Opportunity Game

Freedom of the press is integral to a functioning democracy and respect for human rights, it is said, and a new study tackles the effects of media freedom in countries that lack democratic…

Some believe a world state is inevitable, others don't. Some believe advancement in communication technologies benefit irregulars more than regulars in War 2.0, others believe the opposite. P. W.…

An article entitled "Can Robots Make Ethical Decisions" was recently published wherein the authors claim that they have successfully modeled difficult moral problems in computer logic, further…