As the Arab Spring blossomed, freedom filled the air, like oxygen. From Cairo to Tripoli, from Paris to New York, politicians, pundits and push-cart operators inhaled its heady idealism and spoke of dreamy possibilities. Now, as winter sets in and we face once more the gap between our imagination and reality, it is a good time to ask an essential but often overlooked question: What is freedom? (more)
Most teachers would frown on students using cell phones in class, but Middle Tennessee State University physics professor William Robertson is glad one of his pupils was reading about a potentially ground-shifting scientific development instead of listening to his lectures. (more)
A Melbourne student has discovered a part of the universe that astrophysicists have spent decades trying to find. (more)
With all the worries over radiation leaks from Japan, and hoarding of potassium iodide tablets, many people might be surprised to learn that they will get more radiation from eating a single banana today than they will from Japan’s nuclear reactor problems. (more)
A laser can act as a “tractor beam”, drawing small objects back toward the laser’s source, scientists have said. (more)
CHICAGO (AP) — The first large study to examine the use of X-rays, CT scans and other medical radiation in children estimates the average child will get more than seven radiation scans by age 18, a potentially worrisome trend. (more)
The policy debate rages over fracking, a process for extracting oil and/or natural gas from rock. (more)
Whether your roommate is Samantha Sleeps-Around or Paul the Prude, cut him or her some slack: People’s predilections for promiscuity lie partially in their DNA, according to a new study. (more)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Russia said Wednesday that dialogue remains the only option for ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as Pyongyang accused South Korea and the U.S. of blocking the stalled talks. (more)
This Sunday at 2 a.m. local time, most residents of the U.S. will turn back their clocks an hour marking the conclusion of daylight saving time. What started us on this ritual in the first place? (more)
The sky erupts. Cities darken, food spoils and homes fall silent. Civilization collapses. (more)
The Tea Party takes clear positions on government spending and regulation: It wants less of both. But on national security, its position is less clear. (more)
Tom Bosley, who died in Palm Springs on Tuesday at the age of 83, was a character actor, and as with most character actors, his many roles resolve themselves in memory toward a hum, an affect: He was round, we remember, and dark and funny. And as with most actors who have the luck, good or ill, to be cast in a long-running television show, the particulars of a lengthy and varied career tend to be absorbed into a single, blinding overwhelming fact. That Bosley won a 1960 Tony Award for the musical “Fiorello!” will be mentioned in many of his obituaries, but nearly all will lead with “Happy Days,” the candy-colored situation comedy in which he starred from 1974 to 1984 — and likely will star, in reruns, long after the rest of us have followed him into the aether. (more)
Two researchers received the Nobel Prize in physics today for their work on graphene, a super-thin sheet of carbon atoms that has unusual and potentially useful properties. (more)
A great many people believe that the Bible, or Nostradamus, or the Mayan calendar, or all three, predict that the world will end in 2012. Now we have a prediction from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Of all the doomsayers out there, NASA is the one to take seriously. (more)
It’s common in sports to see an athlete play past his prime, searching for something he never achieved or fearing life without the spotlight. Think Muhammad Ali losing to Leon Spinks or Willie Mays batting .211 for the New York Mets. (more)
A new photonic chip that works on light rather than electricity has been built by an international research team, paving the way for the production of ultra-fast quantum computers with capabilities far beyond today’s devices. (more)
The Energy Department is holding 324 metric tons of bomb-grade uranium at the same time the Obama administration is urging nations to reduce or eliminate their stores of the material, according to a report to be released Tuesday by the nuclear watchdog group Project on Government Oversight. (more)
God did not create the universe, Stephen Hawking revealed yesterday. In the flurry of publicity preceding his new book, The Grand Design, to be published next week, he does some serious dissing of the Almighty, declaring him/her/it irrelevant. The point is, he says, that our universe followed inevitably from the laws of nature. But, we might ask, where did they come from? (more)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea appears to have ramped up its propaganda war against South Korea and the U.S. by turning to Twitter and YouTube — websites that most citizens of the reclusive communist country are banned from viewing. (more)
