George Dyson talks with Martin Eiermann about the definition of life, human progress, and the importance of cognitive autarchy.
Major changes are needed in agriculture and food consumption around the world if future generations are to be adequately fed, a major report warns. Farming must intensify sustainably, cut waste and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from farms, it says. The Commission on Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change spent more than a year assessing evidence from…
Governments, businesses and civil society have much to gain from a spirit of determination within the international community
After having launched the space rover Curiosity to Mars, researchers at NASA are now planning to send people to the red planet. Work has begun at Michoud Assembly Facility to find ways by which Mars could be made a reachable planet. It has been reported that the Boeing engineers have been given the responsibility to…
After nearly a full term in office, fewer than half (49%) of voters correctly identify Obama as Christian. Around 1-in-5 (17%) voters continue to incorrectly say that Obama is a Muslim, up from 12% in 2008. Most strikingly, 31% of voters say they are unsure of his religious beliefs. Other questions confirm this identification problem:…
Millions of tons of tiny bits of plastic float in giant patches — or gyres — in oceans around the world. There are five large patches of plastic. One of them, the North Pacific Gyre, is roughly twice the size of the United States. All of them are a problem. These bits of plastic look…
Religion is a complex neurocognitive experience that includes rituals, social groups, and other dimensions not easily replicated in a lab or isolated in individual human minds.