Letters Remain

Category: Uncategorized

  • Recession’s Influence on Working Habits

    During times of recession the way business is conducted changes drastically. Given the current economic climate, Lynda Gratton—a professor from the London Business School—wonders what working habits will emerge now? The 1981-82 recession heralded the end of the notion of a “job for life”. Jobs and careers would never be the same. The mantra following…

  • International Year of Astronomy 2009

    2009 is the International Year of Astronomy, and to celebrate Seed Magazine has compiled some awe-inspiring images. For more incredible images, see The Big Picture’s Hubble Space Telescope Advent calendar.

  • Celebrating Neutrality

    On wondering why there are a lot fewer prediction markets than the topic’s popularity might suggest, Robin Hanson of Overcoming Bias looks at neutral arbitrators and asks, Who Cheers the Referee? Similarly who cheers the officials who keep elections fair, or the teachers who grade fairly?  Inspiring stories are told of folks who win legal…

  • Success During the Great Depression

    From Google Answers: “What industries fared relatively better and worse in terms of pricing and demand during the Great Depression of 1929? Do the industries reflect a hierarchy of demand from essential consumables to deferrable purchases to capital goods? What specific companies did well in any industry and what distinguishes those companies.” The answer provides…

  • Moving Past Conspicuous Consumption

    Rob Walker—New York Times columnist (Consumed) and author of Buying In—calls for an end to conspicuous consumption, the purchasing of lavish goods purely to project wealth, and a move towards the invisible badge: Thorstein Veblen introduced the idea of “conspicuous consumption” in The Theory of the Leisure Class, in 1899. And it’s still being recycled…

  • Journal Requires Authors to Submit to Wikipedia

    Despite the growth of open access, most scientific journals are still closed and the access debate rages on. Now, however, the closed access RNA Biology has chosen another option: it requires all scientists submitting an article for publication to also create a Wikipedia article outlining their findings. From the journal’s new submission guidelines: At least…

  • Iran’s Sexual Revolution

    Taking the lead from Pardis Mahdavi’s latest book, Passionate Uprisings, The Nation looks at Iran’s ‘sexual revolution’ in these days of political dissent and upheaval. Somehow, one suspects that the grassroots push to change sexual mores cannot be totally divorced from the effort, on the part of feminist activists but also some reformist parliamentarians and…

  • The Importance of Teasing

    Outlawing teasing as a form of bullying is a step too far, says psychologist Dacher Keltner in The New York Times, as current research shows that teasing is “a form of social play […] essential for learning to manage complex social interactions”. The reason teasing is viewed as inherently damaging is that it is too…

  • (Bad) Science Review, 2008

    The third annual ‘celebrity audit’ from the charity Sense About Science has been released, and it makes for amusing—and depressing—reading. The campaign, targeting celebrities who promote theories, therapies and campaigns that make little or no scientific sense, this year takes a swipe at Tom Cruise, Jim Carey, Barack Obama and Demi Moore, among others. In…

  • Improving the Public’s Perception of Science

    Prof. Chad Orzel of Uncertain Principles highlights a number of ways we can all help to improve the public’s perception of science. Buy and promote science books Demand science from the media Support science education across the board Train and/or support science teachers Encourage science students in other careers Encourage good commuicators Reward outreach Written primarily…