Saturday, March 10, 2012

November 22, 1963

“For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see the world is barely there at all. Don’t we secretly know this? It’s a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark.”

Steven King

November 22, 1963

Saturday, March 3, 2012

How economic inequality harms societies

We feel instinctively that societies with huge income gaps are somehow going wrong. Richard Wilkinson charts the hard data on economic inequality, and shows what gets worse when rich and poor are too far apart: real effects on health, lifespan, even such basic values as trust.

In "The Spirit Level," Richard Wilkinson charts data that proves societies that are more equal are healthier, happier societies.









Open Science

What if every scientist could share their data as easily as they tweet about their lunch? Michael Nielsen calls for scientists to embrace new tools for collaboration that will enable discoveries to happen at the speed of Twitter.

A physicist turned writer, Michael Nielsen believes online communication and collaboration tools are revolutionizing the way we make scientific discoveries.