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...

Riding on the train into Valencia the other day, I noticed that fresh graffiti tags had appeared on concrete barriers that are being put in as part of a high-speed rail expansion. The economy in Spain is not doing well at the moment, and there is a lot of youth unemployment, which probably explains the proliferation of graffiti art. A moral panic...

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...

Some members of the exopolitics and free energy crowd had hitched their wagons to a ballot initiative to establish an open extraterrestrial affairs committee in Denver, Colorado. The initiative was soundly defeated by 84% in voting on November 2nd. But the primary sponsor of the initiative, Jeff Peckman, isn’t ready to throw in the towel on his...

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...