Opinion & Commentary

In an interview with Elizabeth Kolbert, E. O. Wilson's warning: evolution has its times and its textures, and we risk making out its patterns too late.

The evolutionary ebb and flow of freedom, liberty, and the collective continues on the Web, as it has throughout the history of the public sphere.

The decline of experimental results isn't something many scientists want to talk about, writes Jonah Lehrer. But perhaps when it comes to science, such disappointment isn't a bug but a feature.

An international group of scientists proposes a "knowledge collider" to bring supercomputing to bear on social problems. While crunching the numbers won't be a problem, figuring out what they mean will prove more challenging.

During next week's CES, you'll rarely hear a single word about why you should really care about the devices debuting there... but is that really so surprising when even the electronics makers at CES can't answer as simple a question as why their gadgets matter?

On the brink of 2011, peering out through circles within circles, reckoning changes to come.

Charlie Stross figures we're ready for a pendulum swing back in the direction of Sir Thomas More.

Remembering the influence of a teacher, critic, and thinker who brought the Web alive with ideas.

After fifteen years I've finally found the perfect writer's machine in the new 11.6-inch MacBook Air. It fuses together both the best software and hardware of which a writer could ever dream, while boasting all of the slender and effortless portability of a composition journal. It is a writer's terminal in the purest sense: with its excellent battery life, ephemeral weight, satisfying keyboard and instant-on capabilities, the new MacBook Air is perfectly suited to be the nexus into the inner chaos of my own thoughts, feelings, hang-ups, pretensions and emotions as a blank page. So why isn't writing any easier?

Perspectives on the FCC's recent net neutrality ruling leave us thinking about the the rise of the app and the enclosure of the commons.