In February, as part of the Science in Society Film and Lecture series at American University, we hosted a screening of the PBS series The Human Spark. Hosted by Alan […]

So I've taken a break from blogging for a while for several reasons.  I was at Mercer University in Macon, GA for a great conference on Alexis de Tocqueville.  I gave the […]

So I've taken a break from blogging for a while for several reasons.  I was at Mercer University at Macon for a great conference on Alexis de Tocqueville.  I gave […]

It’s not easy for most urban dwellers to get their daily dose of nature moving from one concrete box to another. Habitat Horticulture tries to solve this problem by painting walls […]

There's no doubt Wall Street's over-leveraged risk-taking was a key cause of the financial crisis. Many critics charge there has been little or no accountability. And yet, will putting bankers […]

Another quick weekend post! Etna has sprung back to life as April opens, with new eruptions from the Southeast Crater Cone. Friday and Saturday (April 8-9), the Italian volcano produced […]

On average, a brain's short term memory can only hold between five and seven pieces of information at a time. Can steps be taken to expand the capacity of our memory—and our brains generally?

When asked to observe a man making mundane decision in his apartment, a sample of people placed greater emphasis on the importance of individual decision making in life.

Couples don't fight about what they identify in surveys: money, sex, raising the kids, in-laws, or housework. Lovers fight when they believe their partners don't care about how they feel.

With endless updates and alerts from social media informing us how much fun our friends are having in their lives, a new psychological problem of the digital era is arising: The fear of missing out. 

Despite our legislative attempts at equality, the beautiful people of the world still have it better. Numerous studies show that attractive people get better treatment in nearly every scenario. 

A century ago, governments began to assert their authority over poor people and immigrants whose bad behavior was supposedly spreading epidemic diseases like smallpox, cholera and typhus. Cops in Boston […]

Stanford University's Susan McConnell explains brain development like "a play that follows a script, that is written down by the genetic code, performed by actors who "have never spoken their […]

The Earl of Oxford rears his ugly head again in a major new Hollywood film that claims Shakespeare never wrote a single word. 

A protest in Toronto last weekend against sexual assault stereotypes, affectionately called the “Sluts March”, reminded me that I have omitted (or perhaps avoided) talking about rape here on Dollars […]

Listening to Mozart does not improve your child's cognitive development. Reading Shakespeare will. 

Passive acts, like listening to Mozart, will not make your child smarter. On the other hand, active engagement--learning to play an instrument or processing words--improves mental functioning. For instance, there […]

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the architect of the Republican’s new budget proposal, is courageous in one sense. By proposing to privatize Medicare and reduce Medicare benefits, he is risking his […]

Scientists researching mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever have recently succeeded at "vaccinating" one generation of mosquito which then passes immunity onto its progeny.

When it comes to diseases like Alzheimer's, it is worth asking whether there is not something unethical about offering people genetic tests for conditions that are not yet treatable.