For the last five years, I’ve been letting psychology graduate students experiment on my children. That, of course, sounds much worse than the reality that I take them to participate in experiments at the University of Colorado lab that probes early language development in toddlers. Still, I have a lingering unease when it comes to […]
Guest Post
I spent several hours on Sunday afternoon in what has to be the most charming cemetery in New York City. If I didn’t know what I was looking for, I would have missed its arched iron gate, tucked into 2nd Avenue just north of East 2nd Street, where the East Village meets the Lower East Side. Once through, […]
One recent Thursday morning, I logged into my email and made an alarming discovery. Instead of opening my inbox, Google directed me to a notice: Account has been disabled . . . . In most cases, accounts are disabled if we believe you have violated either the Google Terms of Service, product-specific Terms of Service . […]
Last November, I spent the hottest hours of a West African afternoon camped outside Tamba Aruna’s office. He’s a slight, soft-spoken man who listens to the sorrows of others each day. His job – mental health supervisor at the emergency clinic operated by Doctors without Borders (or MSF) in Sierra Leone – makes Aruna a […]
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 […]
In an obituary for veteran rocket scientist Yvonne Brill this weekend, the New York Times disastrously failed science writer Christie Aschwanden’s Finkbeiner test for profiling scientists. She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three children. “The world’s best mom,” her son Matthew […]
Data mining. Maybe the term makes you think of tapping out facts out with a pickax, or of scary algorithms and programming. But it doesn’t have to be that way. With this handy guide, I’ll show you how to do (rudimentary) data mining from the comfort of your desk, no computer science degree necessary. All […]
In the mail yesterday I received a grizzly bear skull from an acquaintance and taxidermist in Soldotna, Alaska. Expertly cleaned down to chalk-white bone and glistening, thumb-sized canines, it was the size and general shape of a football, and as smooth as sanded wood. My friend had apologized ahead of time for there being a […]