"There’s always an opportunity to give money, if that’s an option," says Mary Ellen Iskenderian. "But giving money is just not sufficient. You’ve got to really make sure that the […]

Joe Therrien, an OWS activist and semi-employed drama teacher, has become infamous since the Nation included him in an article on "The Audacity of Occupy Wall Street," which began like […]

Penn Jillette rates Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and the various other candidates for the U.S. Presidency in 2012 from the perspective of an atheist.

Religious groups, labor groups, women's rights groups, environmental groups and various business interests all offer "scorecards" that rate politicians. So why not atheists? Penn Jillette fills the void.

The International Energy Agency, known for its typically conservative estimates when it comes to climate change, has produced a disturbingly gloomy report on the future of the planet.

A Russian space probe headed for Mars' moon Phobos has stalled in Earth's orbit. Meanwhile, N.A.S.A. plans to launch its biggest Mars rover yet in just over two weeks.

While I voted yesterday, I thought about the Occupy movement.  As I cast a "yes" ballot for the right to buy alcoholic beverages on Sundays at package shops in John's […]

Under a new energy proposal from the Obama administration, the Atlantic and Pacific coasts would remain off-limits to further oil drilling schemes but the Arctic would be opened up.

No, not outer space. The very space in which everything exists is still poorly understood by physicists. Since Einstein, we have known space has a structure but not how it functions.

Will the people sounding dramatic warnings about the latest risk-du-jour ever realize that in some cases the fear they cause may well do more harm than whatever it is they’re […]

The world's largest array of radio telescopes may soon be awarded to South Africa. Besides revolutionizing our knowledge of the cosmos, the project could spark a scientific renaissance.

"There’s always an opportunity to give money, if that’s an option," says Mary Ellen Iskenderian. "But giving money is just not sufficient."  

Surprise, surprise. CNN and MSNBC viewers tend to be more concerned about climate change while Fox News viewers tend to be more doubtful.

As I've mentioned in the past, my wife and I have for several years been attending a Unitarian Universalist church in the New York area. Unitarian Universalism is officially a […]

This has been a big week for the U.S. domestic airline industry and its embrace of environmentally-friendly biofuels. On Monday, a United Airlines jet completed the first-ever biofuel-powered commercial flight […]

So Tocqueville found two sources of the American devotion to universal education.  The first is the universal literacy that is a requirement for a country where everyone works for himself.  Being […]

Deron Durflinger, a high school principal in Van Meter, Iowa, says: We need a system that isn't based on doing well on NAEP and PISA, but in which students are […]

A friend of mother’s, a lovely older woman, casually remarked recently that the only way she would consider dating again would be if she found a man willing to provide […]

Honda's Asimo robot can now run faster, balance better on uneven surfaces, hop on one foot and even pour a drink. Some of those skills may allow it help clean up the Fukushima plant.

Doug Melton, of Harvard's Stem Cell Institute, speaks of a new era of medicine in his Floating University lecture. Medicine will no longer aim to simply fix you if you have a disease or injury, but replenish you in order to maintain your young and vibrant state.