Looking for inspiration recently I found Edge.org, a website that purports to “seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds” and put them to work on the world’s most difficult problems. A bit presumptuous, but I was intrigued enough to dig a bit deeper. This year in 2013, the contributors (which range from psychologists to futurologists...

Paul Krugman, nobel prize winning economist and author of several books on the required reading list when I was in college, said on CNN last week that an impending invasion by aliens could help rescue the beleaguered US economy. Krugman made the remarks during an appearance on GPS, hosted by Fareed Zakaria, in which the economist was asked to comment...

Recent photos of the moon taken by the Chinese lunar orbiter Chang’e-2 reveal more than just higher-resolution images of craters that were first photographed by the Soviets more than 50 years ago. The latest lunar mission is proof of a long term commitment by the Chinese National Space Administration (NSA) to develop a lunar landing capability...

Within the next decades, advances in scientific observation and technology will enable humanity to begin answering questions that have endured since the beginning of civilization. Among those, how did life first emerge on our planet, could the same process have happened elsewhere, and are we alone in the vast universe? Already, we’ve taken our...