Portside

Computers can translate French and prove mathematical theorems. But can they make deep conceptual insights into the way the world works?

Jack Black and Morgan Freeman Explain the Iran Nuclear Deal. A Brief History of Everything. Street Art for Hope and Peace. Key & Peele - Pro Teaching. Scalia's Poetry Slam.

A woman’s decision to donate her aborted fetus to medical research—and Planned Parenthood’s willingness to transfer the fetal material—is deeply commendable. No woman is eager to have an unwanted pregnancy, but if she decides to terminate it, Planned Parenthood can help turn her misfortune into a mitzvah. That is not an act of killing. It is an act of altruism.

In 2010, more than half of all the people with science and engineering related jobs were White men. But—enough wallowing in disheartening numbers and bigoted language. Plenty of people are moving the conversation forward: writing, speaking, and tweeting intelligently about the lack of diversity in science.

In Jurassic World, Velociraptors are depicted as big, drab-coloured, scaly brutes. We've known for some time that wasn't true - Velociraptors had feathers. And now, thanks to a spectacular fossil of a new dinosaur, we know in detail what the real Velociraptor would have been like. Far from being a scaly-skinned reptilian monster, Velociraptor would have been a fluffy, feathered poodle from hell.

Slavery to Mass Incarceration. Mess Within Texas - Sandra Bland's Arrest. Traffic Stop. Are We Really 99% Chimp? The First Openly Asshole President.

Ninth Rock From the Sun. War / No More Trouble. Elizabeth Warren Keynotes Netroots Nation. Film: Do I Sound Gay? "Our Selma!" March for Voting Rights

“The New Horizons mission is a stunning validation of not only astronomy and physics, but of science itself. ... No astrologer could have given us this information. Alchemy could not have powered the rockets so powerfully and precisely ... This will be remembered as an achievement of our species, of our civilization, and of the power of science.”