If you’re a bibliophile and a lover of the beauty and sensuousness of the spoken and written word (like Stephen Fry in this fantastic animated essay), then you probably already know about the sophistication, the richness, and the history (animated, no less) of the English language. But if don’t have a strong background on grammar … Read more
Penises… they’re great. In my case, we’re best friends. I never leave home without mine. Do you? It may seem pretty obvious what they’re for (what, with their relentless one-mind track), but there are still many mysteries surrounding these anatomical masterpieces. For instance, how come lots of species sport a bone in theirs while humans … Read more
Over the past few years, TED has grown into a household name due to the amazing lectures and presentations that they’ve made publicly available to the entire world. TEDTalks are presentations about ideas that are worth spreading. Well, Nick Hanauer decided to give a talk about an idea he considered worth spreading: how we’ve been … Read more
I’m really busy at the moment (grading finals and term papers), and don’t have time to get into a long introduction to the fantastic TEDTalk presentation below, but suffice it to say that in a time in which the politicization of women’s issues (whether they should have the right to choose or to have or not have … Read more
When it comes to the world beyond our direct, ordinary experience, we just don’t have what it takes to understand the differences in scale. If you are given a model Earth and Moon made to scale, for instance, and you’re asked to estimate how far apart they would have to be from each other to … Read more
I’ve had a weird relationship with the poetry of Billy Collins since I was a freshman in college: I found some of it to be great, interesting, eloquent, disciplined, musical writing, and some of it not even to merit the appellation of poetry at all. And don’t get me started on his Marginalia and the stupid … Read more
We live in a world in which we presuppose as a given that great scientific discoveries require the existence of great, expensive technological equipment: lasers, the Large Hadron Collider, microscopes, computers, the Hubble and Kepler telescopes, synchrotrons, super-duper cameras, you name it… But more than great technology, the real secret to discovery is creativity, because … Read more