I’ve been a freelancer for over 20 years. It’s not quite accurate to say there aren’t benefits. There are; they just don’t include health care and employer-matched IRAs. The benefits are such things as not having to use an alarm clock or wear pants everyday, if you don’t feel like it. You can.  But you don’t [...]

Sometimes one gets a sinking feeling. Here we are on the cusp of so very many things in science, from finding other Earths, to understanding the extraordinary organisms right under our noses, and even detecting the fundamental particles that help build all that we see. We are also in the midst of an incredible flourishing [...]

As my Amtrak train rolled past the “Lancaster” sign, the window view alighted on the upright figure of an Amish farmer and his mule-team-pulled hand plow, working the verdant Pennsylvania land just as his forefathers have done here for more than two centuries. I remembered that I was only some 33 miles from Dover, Pa., [...]

Two future experiments set to take flight aboard the International Space Station have some unusual creators: teenagers who won the first YouTube Space Lab video competition today, sponsored by YouTube, Lenovo and Space Adventures. Students around the globe entered two-minute videos describing their idea for tests to conduct in low-Earth orbit. Judges, including NASA, ESA [...]

Students ages 14-18: Have a big idea for an experiment that can be done in space? Bring it! That is, describe it in a video and post it to YouTube Space Lab by December 14. Your idea might be one of two that will actually be built and flown aboard the International Space Station. You’ll [...]

Mindfulness, the practice of being present and in the moment, is easier for some people than for others. But it is a skill that many believe is worth cultivating—some say, starting with children. Preventing your mind from taking you into the past or future can, after all, be an antidote to depression (which can result [...]