Magazine
Learning without school
Unschooling: it sounds rebellious and radical. But to more and more parents and kids, it’s a sensible alternative to the classroom. It’s a stormy Monday morning in the Dutch town of Rijswijk. At a local primary school, recess has just begun. The kids’ exuberant shouts travel down the Read More...
Getting Old
“I’m trying to save the lives of 100,000 people a day” Call him crazy, but Aubrey de Grey believes that people can live for hundreds of years: it’s just a technological leap we haven’t made yet. We hate to bring this up, but the odds are that you’ll get old and sick one day and then Read More...
Health Aging
Kris Verburgh knows how you can age well and lose weight, but don’t call him a diet guru. Many pages into writing his new book, Kris Verburgh realized the truth. Darn it, he was writing a diet book! This from someone who dislikes diet books. “I don’t believe in diets,” he says. “I’m not Read More...
Turn up the stress
Even as we anxiously try to avoid and suppress it, more and more research shows that stress is actually beneficial. It results in better performance, keeps us alert and is even good for our health. One morning in 2007, Arianna Huffington awoke in a pool of blood on the floor of her office. She had Read More...
Flight of the eco-drones
At the edge of a Sumatran forest on a clear day last November, a six-rotor drone lifted off and sailed gracefully out over the wilderness in search of flowering trees. The small, robotic aircraft is a member of ConservationDrones’ fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), built not to spy or drop Read More...
Seven memory tricks
Let them play Video games are no longer the exclusive domain of teenagers who shoot, fly and punch their way through complex and hostile terrain. Serious games are a tremendous growth market, because they offer the player a safe environment in which to train all sorts of abilities, whether that’s Read More...
Oasis in a food desert
In the food desert of Chicago’s South Side, a half hour drive is often necessary if you want to avoid shopping at a fast food restaurant or gas station. Yet change is around the corner. Between the sprawl and the empty lots, a little food utopia is unfolding. An old meat-packing building from the Read More...
Stay in touch
Rome, Georgia, is the somewhat unlikely center of a very relaxed population. The small town of less than 40,000 in the northwest corner of the state is home to more than its share of massage therapists, thanks in part to a neuromuscular therapy program at the local technical college. That’s where Read More...
Bread be gone!
Ten years ago, the American neurologist David Perlmutter discovered an interesting connection among his patients. He determined that many of his patients with neurological problems also showed symptoms of stomach and -intestinal problems. After he recommended a gluten-free diet to his patients for Read More...
A wellspring of peace
The meeting in 2008 about ending the war between Israel and Palestine proceeded with difficulty. Finally, though, came a moment when the two sides reached agreement. The turning point came during a discussion about water. The Jews and Arabs, both Muslims and Christians, acknowledged that both Read More...