Science and Technology

East and Southeast Asia, World’s Largest Markets for Synthetic Drugs — Major Drag on Development Human Wrongs Watch 20 August 2014 – East and Southeast Asia remain the world’s largest markets for synthetic drugs, and the methamphetamine problem is showing signs…

Does money make you mean? Does lack of money make you sick? Epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson and social psychologist Paul Piff discuss the human effects of economic and social inequality. What do a disease-fighting epidemiologist (retired) and an up-and-coming social psychologist have…

Right now you have a movie playing inside your head. It’s an amazing multi-track movie. It has 3D vision and surround sound for what you’re seeing and hearing right now, but that’s just the start of it. Your movie has…

Our consciousness is a fundamental aspect of our existence, says philosopher David Chalmers: “There’s nothing we know about more directly…. but at the same time it’s the most mysterious phenomenon in the universe.” He shares some ways to think about…

Longevity science may divide us into treated and untreated: the first living ever longer, the second dying even younger than now George Monbiot, The Guardian, Monday 7 July 2014 19.15 BST Once it was a myth. Now it’s a dream.…

By Laura McClure for TED Ethicists are concerned about the recently published details of a mood alteration experiment conducted on Facebook users. Ready to go beyond the headlines? 5 primary sources worth reading next. Source: “Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social…

The tentacles of Spain’s Telefonica Movistar spread far and wide. I refer not only to the interests of their shareholders, such as banks BBVA and La Caixa, or close links with political power, and their “representatives” on the board, but…

By Gustav Cappaert and Chris Lewis EL PALOMAR, Bolivia, Jun 23 2014 (IPS) – Maria Eugenia Calle, a local official in this Andean agricultural community, recently saw the Internet for the first time. Her hometown of El Palomar will host…

Alan Turing, 1912 –1954, was a British mathematician, logician cryptanalyst, compute scientist and philosopher. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of “algorithm” and “computation” with the Turing machine, which can be…

By Amy Goodman with Denis Moynihan Michael Powell is the son of Gen. Colin Powell. The elder Powell knows a thing or two about war. He famously presented the case for invading Iraq to the United Nations, on Feb. 5,…