The Silent Epidemic: Coal and the Hidden Threat to Health
We will not find “exposure to burning coal” listed as the cause of death on a single death certificate, but tens of thousands of deaths from asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer,...
16 Jul 202314min
Working on Mars: Voyages of Scientific Discovery with the Mars Exploration Rovers
Geologists in the field climb hills and hang onto craggy outcrops; they put their fingers in sand and scratch, smell, and even taste rocks. Beginning in 2004, however, a team of geologists and other p...
15 Jul 202319min
Take Back the Center: Progressive Taxation for a New Progressive Agenda
Midcentury America was governed from the center, a bipartisan consensus of politicians and public opinion that supported government spending on education, the construction of a vast network of interst...
14 Jul 202318min
Sofya Aptekar, "Green Card Soldier: Between Model Immigrant and Security Threat" (MIT Press, 2023)
While the popular image of the US military is one of citizen soldiers protecting their country, the reality is that nearly 5 percent of all first-time military recruits are noncitizens. Their reasons ...
14 Jul 20231h 1min
Logistic Clusters: Delivering Value and Driving Growth
Why is Memphis home to hundreds of motor carrier terminals and distribution centers? Why does the tiny island-nation of Singapore handle a fifth of the world's maritime containers and half the world's...
13 Jul 202315min
Borges and Memory: Encounters with the Human Brain
Imagine the astonishment felt by neuroscientist Rodrigo Quian Quiroga when he found a fantastically precise interpretation of his research findings in a story written by the great Argentinian fabulist...
12 Jul 202314min
The Art of Failure: An Essay on the Pain of Playing Video Games
We may think of video games as being "fun," but in The Art of Failure, Jesper Juul claims that this is almost entirely mistaken. When we play video games, our facial expressions are rarely those of ha...
11 Jul 202315min
Robot Futures
With robots, we are inventing a new species that is part material and part digital. The ambition of modern robotics goes beyond copying humans, beyond the effort to make walking, talking androids that...
10 Jul 202314min
