For most of human history creativity was something that came from the muses; it was about flashes of insight from another world. Today we know that creativity is something that […]

Do you know what is in your digital dossier? Since you began to have a life on the Web, data has been accruing about the habits and interests of your […]

The degree to which companies can yield the power of individuals' data to explain societal behavior gives them unprecedented amounts of power. Privacy is a relatively minor concern. 

The successful decoding of the human genome was a phenomenal scientific achievement.  For the first time in the world’s history, the entire genetic code of the human species was fully available to […]

A new online social network wants to bring neighborhoods together in ways that may agree with how people want to know their neighbors, i.e. semi-anonymously and at their convenience. 

Most commentary on U.S.-China relations understandably focuses on the challenges that a rising China poses to America’s superpower position and the incentives that America has to prevent China from displacing […]

--Guest post by Declan Fahy, AoE’s Science and Culture correspondent. Can popular science writing help diagnose a medical condition? It did for me. Since I was a teenager I had […]

I kind of want to move to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Actually, not really, but I may visit more often once the new 2nd Avenue Subway line is […]

With Stephen Colbert on vacation this week, Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona seems to have jumped into the role of the laughable conservative who makes ridiculous arguments with a straight face — or, in this case, who tries to make worthwhile political science research sound ridiculous. 

The SpaceX Dragon is scheduled to make a demonstration launch this Saturday to the International Space Station, an important milestone in the private space race. And yet, SpaceX founder Elon Musk isn't content. He's eying Mars, with or without NASA. 

What's the big deal about J.P. Morgan's $2 billion trading loss? Austan Goolsbee, an economic advisor to President Obama, said the American public should be concerned because, in his words, […]

When I was five my family got its first microwave oven. The department store sent a nice lady over to teach my mother how she could use it to roast […]

Despite a recent privacy snafu, the creator of the smartphone-based social network Path says he wants to create a portable Internet that provides an intimate place for private social groups. 

A new education initiative brings together app developers and professional educators to use the power of tablet computers in the classrooms. New apps teach everything from spelling to Chinese script. 

Last week the House voted 218-208 to block the National Science Foundation from funding political science research. No other type of research would be blocked by the NSF budget amendment. […]

MIT economist Esther Duflo has documented how anti-poverty programs create an economic benefit larger than the sum of their parts. She says the margin represents the yield of hope's seeds. 

So, I guess Facebook is here to stay.  In honor of its over-subscribed IPO, I’m brainstorming about how social media might be existentially changing our romantic lives and intimacy. Here’s […]

A Ukrainian feminist movement called Femen draws attention to their cause by stripping from the waist up. Is that political action or simply playing into a hyper-sexual female stereotype? 

Increasingly innovative computer scripts are being created that automate entire criminal processes—processes that, in the past, used to require human intervention.  Don’t like your boss?  Threaten to tell his wife […]

 Tribalism is pervasive, and it controls a lot of our behavior, readily overriding reason.