Science & Technology

The Encyclopaedia Britannica is dead. Long live the Encyclopaedia Britannica! The encyclopedia’s publisher has announced that, in response to the ongoing digital revolution, it will discontinue its printed version and provide exclusively digital content. The publisher’s decision marks a new era for the encyclopedia, and more broadly it marks a…

After two weekends in theaters, the film Lorax earned more than $120 million, reports Bloomberg Businessweek. That’s an impressive haul for a film condemning capitalism. But the irony is apparently lost on the filmmakers. In the original Dr. Seuss story on which the film is based, a manufacturer chops down…

The Obama administration finally found a program it is willing to cut, albeit a tiny one. However, the administration is facing opposition to this reduction by. . . conservatives. As the Washington Times reports, the U.S. government has spent around $2 million per year to facilitate the “adoption” of so-called…

“Animal scientist and advocate for people with autism Temple Grandin [was] inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame,” the AP reports. Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University, earned fame when Claire Danes portrayed her in the 2010 HBO film Temple Grandin (the DVD of which…

If I were to write a business plan based on manufacturing and selling a product few people wanted, for a price few people were willing to pay, in the midst of the worst recession in at least twenty years, would you invest funds in my venture?  You would if you…

In a brief video, constitutional law professor Elizabeth Price Foley discusses the Institute for Justice’s amicus brief, which she co-authored, on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) for the U.S. Supreme Court. Here’s an excerpt: It’s always been the case under Anglo-American law that contracts have to be…

Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke advocated the federal government’s requirement that insurance companies provide “free” birth control, arguing that, without it, women "struggle financially" and feel “powerless.” In response, conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh called Fluke a “slut,” the New York Daily News reports. Fluke fired back, saying Limbaugh’s “language…

A new class of drugs shows promising signs of reversing the damage of the frightful disease multiple sclerosis (MS), reports Michael Booth for the Denver Post. New drugs including Gilenya and Tysabri are proving increasingly effective in treating the disease. The web page for Tysabri describes the basics of how…

The Pope belies his church’s “pro life” posturing in his recent condemnation of “artificial fertility,” by which he means any medically assisted pregnancy not involving a “conjugal act” between husband and wife. Thus, the AP summarizes, the Pope condemns “sperm or egg donation and methods such as in vitro fertilization.”…

A recent decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made an end-run around an existing ban on compensation for most bone marrow donations. In light of new technology enabling the extraction of bone marrow cells from blood, the court ruled that “marrow cells taken from a donor's blood were…