In 1935, lava from an eruption of the volcano Mauna Loa, on the Big Island of Hawai’i, started oozing toward the Wailuku River, main source of water for the city of Hilo. This danger to the more than 15,000 residents […]
Jessica Biel never had a chance. Granted, it's hard to be a real contender when you share an Emmy category with Regina King; her Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or a Movie win last night for her role […]
Find yourself adrift at sea, surrounded by undrinkable water, and you will parch to death. Find yourself lost in a desert and you will meet the same fate, also surrounded by water, also undrinkable. That’s because, even in the driest […]
When I worked at a university in Mongolia, International Women’s Day was a kind of second Valentine’s Day. Male teachers and students brought flowers and sweets to dole out to their female counterparts, and the vibe among women was almost […]
Westworld is a hell of a show, but the sense of dread it elicits is nothing new. Pygmalion sculpted a woman who came to life. Same goes with the Golem, only with mud. The amalgamated Frankenstein jolted awake to get […]
In a bright warehouse in the heart of Northern California’s cannabis country, a metal gate slowly peels up. “Also Sprach Zarathustra”—the iconic music from 2001: A Space Odyssey—blares as the room behind is revealed. A mob of marijuana farmers and […]
Man, where can we even begin with this past week? It was a doozy. For one, the US government barreled towards shutdown. For another, the Senate refused to back President Trump's nominee for US district judge in North Carolina following […]
It's tough being a parent. Sometimes I try to help my kids with their physics homework because I like to pretend that I'm sort of OK with physics. Recently, my daughter wanted me to check her answer for this question. […]
Bad news for those hoping to see President Trump's planned military parade this November: It’s postponed, perhaps because it was apparently going to cost more than $80 million more than originally estimated. And that was just one of a couple […]
In the early 2000s, a small community of coder-cosmologists set out to simulate the 14-billion-year history of the universe on a supercomputer. They aimed to create a proxy of the cosmos, a Cliffs Notes version in computer code that could […]