The election to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat captivated the nation not only because much in the Obama Administration’s agenda was at stake, but because the polls seemed inconclusive and inconsistent. A week before the election, some polls were still showing Democrat Martha Coakley well ahead, but a surge in support for Republican … Read more
Red or blue, right or left—we have plenty of ways to identify our politics, and they don’t usually include the anterior cingulate cortex. But what if political leanings are actually hard-wired? Political thought is the latest space for nature/nurture debate—with implications for the future of bipartisanship. If genes determine politics, is compromise really possible? A … Read more
Loud sex is now as good as a warrant. Believe it or not, the Superior Court of New Jersey recently ruled that high-volume sex is cause enough for police to search a home. It is just the latest move in the battle over privacy in the US. The walls of solitude just got a little thinner, especially for … Read more
Of the 2,207 people aboard the Titanic when it hit the iceberg, 1,664 (75%) were male passengers or crew members and only 438 (19.8%) were female passengers or crew members. The odds a male passenger would survive the accident were 1 in 5.91 (16.9%). The odds a female passenger would survive were 1 in 1.37 (73%). The percentage of survival … Read more