bigthinkeditor
Spain’s surprisingly advanced renewable energy sector is facing obstacles like government cutbacks, ever-changing regulations and a retracting European economy.
“More than 60 percent of U.S. cancer deaths are caused by smoking and diet. But what about the rest?” asks Scientific American. New studies are seeking the environmental causes of cancer.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” says Barry Goldman at the L.A. Times, frustrated by tech support’s insufficient understanding of modern gizmos.
Jeff Jarvis defends publicness, as opposed to privacy, amid the Google and Facebook privacy debacles as a way of protecting an open society and preserving the Internet as a public good.
The rise of middle power states with nuclear ambitions like Iran, Brazil and Turkey must be tolerated if the West hopes to maintain a credible non-proliferation regime, says a former CIA chief.
Salon.com explains the unintended moral messages we should have taken from the fate of Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the rest of the cast on last night’s series finale of Lost.
European scientists plan to launch two satellites into orbit, one always between the other and the sun, in order to study the sun’s corona without waiting for a natural eclipse.
Technology is decentralizing medical treatments from costly hospitals to primary care physicians and patients themselves with more focus placed on preventative care.
Stephen Fry will select the most beautiful tweet ever written at the Guardian Hay literature festival in England in keeping with the festival’s non-elitist approach.
Climate scientists looking at data from 2010 think the warm weather phenomenon El Niño combined with global warming could make for a hot summer—the hottest ever.
Steve Chapman opposes France’s proposed ban on burqas because in a free society “none of us is obligated to integrate. The Amish don’t. Neither do the Hare Krishnas.”
Attempts to demonstrate Picasso’s communist ties through his art are unnecessary since the painter was overt about his politics, writes the Guardian, and doing so limits the scope of his works.
Should the U.S. bail out Europe by contributing to IMF funds meant to salvage damaged and indebted European economies? We asked for globalization and now we’ve got it.
The New Criterion takes issue with moral relativism and asks after what limits exist to tolerating cultural practices that advocate violence against the defenseless.
“In Europe and parts of Asia, many politicians, political scientists, and citizens have lately developed greater respect for the positive role a constitutional monarch can play in democracy.”
Can investment in the arts be justified as a solution to the economic crisis? No, writes Prospect Magazine, and the illusion that it can or should devalues the arts’ role in society.
MIT’s Yasheng Huang says the U.S. would help repair the global economy more by teaching China about small business administration than politicizing its currency exchange rate.
Anthropologist David Puts explains biological and behavioral differences between men and women in terms of evolutionary competition to win the best mate.
When memory mixes with desire, politicians exaggerate their personalities, says Maureen Dowd who absolves politicians of their lies by giving them the benefit of the doubt.
Having “misspoken” gets American politicians out of their brazen lies, but our English brethren are mystified at our willingness to accept falsehoods and half-truths from our leaders.
Will the floundering of the E.U.’s single currency persuade member nations to submit to further federation? Andrew Stuttaford says the current crisis may spawn a more unified union.
With declining social mobility and nearly one million under-24s neither in college nor work in the UK, Janice Turner laments the lack of inspiring onscreen and literary role models.
Virginia Heffernan says that what’s happening on the Internet since the introduction of the App Store is akin to urban decentralization and white flight.
“It is no longer a smart social move to brag about not owning a television,” writes Richard Beck. He says the small screen has gone from popular entertainment to popular art.
Bioethicist Arthur Caplan writes that the creation of the first synthetic bacteria demonstrates a new understanding we have of life, but that doesn’t mean life is worth any less.
100 years after Mark Twain’s death, the Mississippi River that inspired his mature writing has changed, and yet, Twain’s ideas remain discernible through it.
MIT is designing commercial aircrafts that use 70 percent less fuel than current airplanes after winning a contract from NASA in 2008; air traffic is expected to double by 2035.
“The economic case for global action to stop the destruction of the natural world is even more powerful than the argument for tackling climate change,” the U.N. will report this summer.
Obama’s deadline for closing Guantanamo having passed, “it’s unclear, as we sit today, whether it’s gonna close at all,” says Matt D’Aloisio, the founder of Witness Against Torture.
Climate change skeptics recently gathered in Chicago to exchange ideas and invectives over the largely accepted claims about the dangers of global warming.