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Do you have to be religious to see a face in burnt toast? Probably not, but believers are more likely to attribute such a face to Jesus (1). Believer in […]

The 18th century French Neoclassical painter Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres played the violin well enough to hold his own with “Sold His Soul to the Devil” good musicians such as […]

This little blog on volcanic activity has turned one year old today!

Give them stories. Let them read Henry James, Edith Wharton, Sherwood Anderson, Theodor Dreiser. Let them read Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald. And Styron, Roth, Didion, Bellow, Franzen. Open the treasure […]

Scrolling through the 2010 Power 100 of Art Review, I almost immediately had two reactions.  First, I’m not on it!  (Bloggers get little to no respect.)  Second, so many of […]

For a growing number of Americans—including many in the military—October 31st is returning to its Celtic and pre-Christian roots.

More threats to life and limb by Australian volcanoes, real threat posed by Hualalai and the impact of the Siberian Traps on trees.

In a guest post today, AU graduate student Allison Kind takes a look at the social media campaign behind the launch of comedian Conan O’Brien’s new show on TBS.–Matthew Nisbet […]

Writing in the New York Review of Books blog, Notre Dame professors John T. McGreevy and R. Scott Appleby recently provided a useful lesson on the history of religious discrimination […]

It’s plain to see that I’m an optimist, sometimes more than is socially comfortable. The ease with which I dismiss the disastrous economic decline above serves as one example of that. I wrote that the recession will benefit our political system, and, before I cut this line, as having “rewarded our company for methodical execution and ruthless efficiency by removing competitors from the landscape.” I make no mention of the disastrous effects on millions of people, and the great uncertainty that grips any well-briefed mind, because it truly doesn’t stand in the foreground of my mind (despite suffering personal loss of wealth). Our species is running towards a precipice with looming dangers like economic decline, political unrest, climate crisis, and more threatening to grip us as we jump off the edge, but my optimism is stronger now than ever before. On the other side of that looming gap are extraordinary breakthroughs in healthcare, communications technology, access to space, human productivity, artistic creation and literally hundreds of fields. With the right execution and a little bit of luck we’ll all live to see these breakthroughs — and members of my generation will live to see dramatically lengthened life-spans, exploration and colonization of space, and more opportunity than ever to work for passion instead of simply working for pay. Instead of taking this space to regale you with the many personal and focused changes I intend to make in 2009, let me rather encourage you to spend time this year thinking, as I’m going to, more about what we can do in 2009 to positively affect the future our culture will face in 2020, 2050, 3000 and beyond.

Far from simply being a relaxed state, meditation is a period of heightened mental activity. Long-term practice can increase one’s capacity for attention as well as compassion.

For decades, holograms have been seen largely on the screen, in sci-fi movies and TV shows like “Star Wars” and “Star Trek.” The famed holodeck on “Star Trek” was used […]

In a panel discussion last night following Feisel Abdul Rauf’s appearance on CNN Larry King Live, host Anderson Cooper and new primetime personalities Kathleen Parker and Eliot Spitzer framed Rauf’s […]

Mark McKinnon was the genius behind Bush’s 2004 media strategy. The Bush campaign successfully portrayed Bush as “a strong leader in a time of change” while redefining Kerry as “weak, […]

John McCain, in an interview with the NY Times, admitted that he does not know how to use the Web or even email. McCain, who will turn 73 in August, […]

One of my roommates way back when I was an undergraduate was an Emory Scholar. I can’t remember exactly how many of them were in each class—either twelve or fourteen. […]

Art is good for the soul, but sometimes it can be bad for your health. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds installation at the Tate Modern in London aroused curiosity […]

“Hypocrisy is always a double edged sword; but in the case of anti-colonial struggles both sides of the blade cut the weaker party more deeply,” says history professor Mark LeVine.

When the Cold War ran red hot, the United States government reached for any weapon available against the “Red Menace.” It’s hard to believe today, when federal funding for the […]

“The only constant is change, continuing change, inevitable change: that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not […]

When I wrote that the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy would come up for a vote, I said that it was unlikely to be repealed.  What I should have […]

On Thursday, at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, I served as one of the panelists at the event “The Public Divide over Climate Change: Science, Skeptics and the […]

A few bloggers have registered their reaction to last week’s PRI radio segment that questions the wisdom of calling climate change and evolution opponents “deniers.” Most notably Orac, Mike the […]

Now that Redoubt has decided that Yellow/Advisory is not to its likely and has returned to an Orange/Watch status, I’ll continue bringing new updates of the volcano has events unfold. […]

Mystery volcano in Kamchatka is disrupting flights to Asia and the local residents around Kelud in Indonesia refuse to heed the warnings of an imminent eruption. UPDATE: Erroneous news feeds got me … this is old news (but still illustrates an important point).

An companion piece to Indian novelist Pankaj Mishra’s elegant Times Op-Ed on India is Isaac Chotiner’s essay in the Times Book Review on (literary magazine)Granta’s Pakistan Issue. Chotiner references Pakistani […]

All the volcano eruptions, news, gossips, controversies of 2009 … it was quite a year for the study of volcanoes!

Afters months of waiting, I have finally been able to get my act together enough to post the answers to questions you posed to Dr. Adam Kent. If you remember […]

Time out for a bit of soft journalism….Variety reports that after an eighteen year wait, Indiana Jones 4 is going into production and will be released in May 2008. After […]

Friday’s IPCC report represents history’s most definitive statement of scientific consensus on climate change, yet despite the best efforts of scientists, advocates, and several media organizations to magnify wider attention […]