What exactly is a doctorate?
What getting a doctorate really means? Matt Might, professor of Computer Science at the University of Utah, offers these graphics to explain conceptually what specialization of knowledge means.
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Make a dent in the universe: Erika Iives
This TEDxStavanger talk by Erika Ilves helps us to imagine the Big Future that our descendants might yet have if we take the long view now
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Row over IPCC Report
Robert Mendick of the Daily Telegraph reported this week about behind-the-scenes wrangling over the up-coming publication of the 2,000-page Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
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No Child Left Untableted
Sally Hurd Smith, a veteran teacher, held up her brand-new tablet computer and shook it as she said, “I don’t want this thing to take over my classroom.” It was late June, a month before the first day of school. In a sixth-grade classroom in Greensboro, N.C., a dozen middle-school social-studies teachers were getting their…
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Overpopulation Is Not the Problem
The only limits to creating a planet that future generations will be proud of are our imaginations and our social systems. In moving toward a better Anthropocene, the environment will be what we make it.
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Gorgeous Glimpses of Calamity
“Welcome to the Anthropocene.” That is the message of a stunning collection of satellite images recently compiled by the New York Times.
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Welcome to the Age of Denial
IN 1982, polls showed that 44 percent of Americans believed God had created human beings in their present form. Thirty years later, the fraction of the population who are creationists is 46 percent. In 1989, when “climate change” had just entered the public lexicon, 63 percent of Americans understood it was a problem. Almost 25…
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How Extreme Australian Rains Made Global Sea Levels Drop
Global sea level has been rising as a result of global warming, but in 2010 and 2011, sea level actually fell by about a quarter of an inch. Scientists now say they know why: It has to do with extreme weather in Australia. The sea level drop coincided with some of the worst flooding in…
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West Antarctica Warmed Quickly: 20,000 Years Ago
The modern meltdown of the Antarctic Ice Sheet mirrors the frozen continent’s big thaw after the last ice age ended 20,000 years ago, a new study finds. New ice core records from West Antarctica show the huge ice sheet started heating up about 20,000 to 22,000 years ago, 2,000 to 4,000 years earlier than previously…
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Warning Label: Big Pharma meets Big History
Why should Big Pharma invest in Big History? My answer is in the form of a warning label I imagined attached to all pharmaceutical products.
