One of the annoying things about parenting is that experience is always ahead of science: Those of us raising kids today are dealing with circumstances, and dilemmas, that researchers will need years to understand. Maybe that’s why parents fortunate enough to afford iPads are fretting so much about how and how much our kids use […]
Month: April 2013
Correction: An article yesterday about a tiny force in quantum mechanics that could be used in future microscopic devices referred incorrectly in some copies to the size of the force measured when two metal plates were placed within one 40-thousandth of an inch of each other. It was one 300-millionth of an ounce, not one 300-thousandth. […]
Imagine for a second that the country of Mexico was a long funnel, with the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts as the sides of the funnel. And imagine you were to roll a marble down the Pacific side, all the way from San Diego, down Sonora, passed Mazatlan, Jalisco (though it takes a little hop over […]
April 1 – 5 On April Fools day, Jennie Dushek teased the internet with the obituary of a great dad. I wondered whether science has anything interesting to say about stupidity. Cassie examined the evidence from the anti-vax side of the aisle and found it wanting. Guest poster Michael Balter told us about the dinosaurs […]
On a chilly February evening, I found myself stepping across the threshold of one of Midtown Manhattan’s many brick high rises. I took the elevator to the sixteenth floor, home of the Meta Center, which describes itself as Manhattan’s “number one destination for Consciousness Raising, Cutting Edge Spiritual & Metaphysical Education, Healing and the Creative […]
I grew up in L.A., but 25 years ago I sold my car and moved to Paris. I’ve had few regrets since, although I do return every year to see my old friends. Each visit reminds me that Angelenos don’t have much to be proud of, especially when they have to sit in traffic for […]
Yesterday at The Washington Post, I wrote about a controversy in which a 911 caller who identified herself as a nurse refused to give CPR to an 87-year-old woman who’d collapsed at a Bakersfield, California independent living facility. (Unlike a nursing home, the facility did not employ medical staff, and, according to the Associated Press, […]
What is stupidity? That’s the question I set out to answer this week for New Scientist. The idea was to look at the science of stupidity, but it took me a good couple of weeks to stop hitting brick walls in my research. Respectable scientists don’t like to talk about stupidity. “Stupidity is an evaluative […]
