The Aleppo Codex, the oldest, most complete, most accurate text of the Hebrew Bible went missing? Where did it go?
This story was done in collaboration with Israel Story, the This American Life of Israel.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
The "connectome" is one of the most audacious science projects ever conceived: a detailed map of the human brain, neuron by neuron, synapse by synapse. In this EXTENDED interview, MIT computational neuroscientist Sebastian Seung explains what we can learn.
Sara Gruen tells Anne Strainchamps why she chose an elephant as a main character for her story of love, avarice and power.
A lot of pro football players cross-train. They practice the plays and the running, the throws and the tackles. We've even heard stories of pro athletes taking ballet lessons to lighten their footwork. But for NFL MVP Shaun Alexander, training also included chess.
Memory is a hot topic in neuroscience, and it turns out the context of our memories is as important as the event itself. Dartmouth neuroscientist Jeremy Manning has found that people can intentionally forget past experiences by changing how they think about the context of their memories.
According to one estimate, the average young person spends about 8 hours a week playing video games. While many parents are worried about all that screen time, there's an emerging body of research that suggests some social and psychological benefits to gaming. And now there's a new generation of educators who want to bring video games into the classroom, not only to make it more fun, but also more effective. Journalist Greg Toppo writes about their efforts in "The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids Smarter."
Philosopher and novelist Umberto Eco wrote a history of beauty. A few years later, he followed it up with a study of ugliness. Here’s what he found
Robert Zubrin explains how he thinks we should go about colonizing Mars, and how settling a new world will save this one. And he describes how NASA’s using his ideas.
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