What prompted the skeptic’s public crusades against Uri Geller, Sylvia Browne, and other self-proclaimed mystics?

Close-up card magic by the master.

Real magicians don’t pretend to be mystical characters. By telling us they’re just performing tricks, they make their feats all the more breathtaking.

What does it take to outperform the master escape artist? Common sense, a good night’s sleep, and shallow breathing.

Conjurers perform skillful tricks, not miracles. But when the magician first saw one of his idols perform, he wasn’t sure whether he was seeing “a demon or an angel.”

A conversation with the magician and scientific skeptic.

A 22-year-old U.S. intelligence analyst has been arrested for allegedly giving classified combat footage of a U.S. helicopter crew killing civilians to Wikileaks, an online repository of leaked documents. The […]

Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron announces today that deep cuts in public expenditure “will change British life”. They will in short be the most drastic public spending cuts in a […]

Gary Becker and Richard Posner weigh in on African development, which has weathered the current economic storm better than any advanced economy. Will Africa finally take off?

"Is a world with people in it better than one without?" asks Peter Singer of Princeton. How do we justify brining new human life into the world amidst so much suffering and unprecedented crises?

Those who worry that the Internet promotes mediocrity should consider the printing press, says Clay Shirky: pulp writing accompanied peer reviewed science and booming literacy rates.

The bad name given to corporate oversight, i.e. government regulation, deligitimizes its role in society and makes ready financial crises; among other things, regulators deserve more pay.

In our world of infinite and instant information, learning one skill deeply could equip us with critical thinking tools necessary to cope with our times, which change faster now than ever.

The Guardian contests the stereotype that Americans are ignorant of history but, the English paper believes, contemporary conservative movements do appropriate the past for political gain.

The successful launch of a private rocket into outer space, which could one day take tourists on suborbital flights, comes just as the U.S. government makes deep cuts at NASA.

Former CIA station chief and director of counter-terrorism, Robert Grenier says peace efforts in Afghanistan demonstrate a house divided against itself — an open ended civil war could follow.

Scientists are working to rule out non-biological explanations for conditions present on Titan, a moon of Saturn, that suggest there could be life on the moon's surface.

European soccer scouts look to Africa for budding talent because players there "are young, technically adept, athletic — and cheap." Is this a modern day slave trade?

The bipolar extremes of American politics—red states, blue states; with us or against us; cut and run or victory; capitalism or socialism—have now divided Islam into two separate categories. There […]

My book “Beyond Einstein” takes readers on an exciting excursion into discoveries that have led scientists to the brightest new prospect in theoretical physics today–superstring theory. Simply answer the statement below […]