More than a century after he died, the Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, who famously fought General Custer in the Battle of Little Bighorn, is thought of as transcendent force – attuned to the universe in a…
Behavioral economists have revolutionized the standard view of human nature. No longer are people presumed to be purely selfish, only acting in their own interest. Hundreds of experiments appear to show…
The US’s top auto safety agency last week fined Japanese car company Honda Motor a record US$70 million for failing to report hundreds of fatal accidents and injuries over the last 11 years. The unfiled…
At present, cannabis is fully legalized in Colorado and Washington and will soon be fully legalized in Oregon and Alaska. Additionally, medical cannabis is legal in 23 states. The writing is on the wall…
Big energy infrastructure projects – power plants, coal mines, long distance transmission lines – take time, resources and, typically, some political muscle. They create highly visible if short-lived construction…
Ethan Zuckerman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Consider two tragic events that took place last week. A small cell of Islamic terrorists attacked cartoonists at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and shoppers in a Paris supermarket, killing 17 people…
It is well known that the US has a major infrastructure problem with our national highway system. Many of our bridges are in a very poor state of repair and highway maintenance is not keeping up with needs…
During these dark winter months, spare a thought for artificial lights. From strings of lights adding holiday cheer to artificial sunlamps alleviating seasonal affective disorder, they brighten our days…
Greece is again making headlines, and markets are concerned the euro crisis is back. Actually, the crisis never left. It is just that for a little while both the authorities and the markets chose to cherish…
Last week, President Barack Obama announced a proposal to guarantee that students could attend a community college for free for their first two years. The announcement was one in a series of previews of…
The deadly attack in Paris by French Islamists with ties to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) provokes several basic responses. One major response is a broad affirmation that the actions of the violent…
In the 1930s, Harry J. Anslinger, the first head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, embarked on a fierce anti-marijuana campaign. Highlighted by the 1936 anti-marijuana film Reefer Madness – where marijuana…
Medical tourism is the practice of seeking medical care across international borders. Countries with established medical sectors like the US, Europe, India and Thailand have been traditional destinations…
The Twittersphere is abuzz about the news on Monday that ISIS or their affiliates are suspected of hacking and compromising the US Central Command’s official Twitter account. As of Monday afternoon in…
The release of the CIA Torture Report in December re-opened the debate about using contractors to perform national security functions. Indeed, when Saturday Night Live mocks contractors for their role…
It’s been roughly eight years since white-nose syndrome (WNS) was first documented decimating bat populations in upstate New York. The disease is caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans which…
Conversations around end-of-life medical care can be challenging. Consider someone I’ll call Mrs. Jones, an elderly patient with advanced heart disease. When her doctor asked her to discuss the kind of…
At this moment, there are likely many eyes on you. If you are reading this article in a public place, a surveillance camera might be capturing your actions and even watching you enter your login information…
It should come as no surprise that comedians would feel threatened by the attack on Charlie Hebdo: the freedom to offend is the source of their livelihood, and many who have offended have been threatened…
The media spotlight on Cherif Kouachi’s life rekindles questions about prisons and radicalization. As an alleged participant of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Kouachi has seemingly led many lives. In one incarnation…
In his 1998 novel, The Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq argued that Charlie Hebdo played a pivotal role in the redefinition of social values in post-1968 France. For self-appointed troublemaker…
When gunmen (thought to be radicalized Muslims) burst into the offices of Charlie Hebdo on the morning of January 7, the front page of the satirical newspaper’s most recent edition featured a caricature…
It’s been almost 60 years since Martin Luther King, Jr. became a household name during the 1955-1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott, and some may find it astonishing that, until the recent release of Selma, he’s…
In 2009, communications scholars Esra Özcan, Ognyan Seizov and I wrote an academic paper on the Danish Muhammad cartoon controversy and its aftermath. We concluded that “visuals have to be taken more seriously…