Jascha Hoffman

New Fiction in Translation

A post-mortem romance from a noted Albanian novelist, a collection of early stories from a Spanish master of suspense, a flawed first novel by a Belgian literary phenomenon, and a brilliant novel of ideas set in volatile Argentina. [text]

Posted by Jascha on December 22, 2010 5:51 AM

Perfect Parallel Parking

Late last year, the mathematician Simon Blackburn devised a simple formula for “perfect parking.” When a Louisiana math teacher found the formula unrealistic, he set out to improve the model... [text]

Posted by Jascha on December 19, 2010 6:20 AM

Killer Earth

The Gaia hypothesis states that life preserves the conditions for its own survival. But Peter Ward, a paleontologist who specializes in mass extinctions, takes a dimmer view of life on earth. Seeing a tangle of organisms that have evolved to starve their competitors and pollute their surroundings, he argues that for billions of years the biosphere has been its own worst enemy... [text]

Posted by Jascha on December 12, 2009 5:10 AM

Science on Stage

Last year, after a play about the life of evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, a stranger walked to the stage and said, "You got it exactly right." It was Trivers himself... [full text] [pdf]

Posted by Jascha on January 22, 2009 4:48 PM

Chemistry in the Kitchen

Voted the world's best restaurant, elBulli offers an unusual culinary experience, from hot velvet-crab aspic with mini-corncob couscous to ice-cold liquorice nitro-dragon dessert. Innovative head chef Ferran Adrià explains how science and haute cuisine can work together... [pdf] [full text]

Posted by Jascha on January 15, 2009 2:41 AM

Carbon Penance

Annina Rüst wanted to help relieve environmental guilt by giving people a tangible reminder of their own energy use, as well as an outlet for the feelings of complicity, shame and powerlessness that surround the question of global warming... [full text]

Posted by Jascha on December 12, 2008 10:33 PM

Scrupulosity Disorder

As the believing man’s version of obsessive-compulsive disorder, the diagnosis of scrupulosity raises questions about where, exactly, the line is to be drawn between probity and perversity. [full text]

Posted by Jascha on December 11, 2008 10:55 AM

Sousveillance

Surveillance, from the French for ''watching over,'' refers to the monitoring of people by some higher authority -- the police, for instance. Now there's sousveillance, or ''watching from below.'' It refers to the reverse tactic: the monitoring of authorities by informal networks of regular people, equipped with little more than cellphone cameras, video blogs and the desire to remain vigilant ... [full text]

Posted by Jascha on December 10, 2006 9:37 PM

The Riemann Hypothesis

The Riemann Hypothesis is, roughly speaking, a 150-year-old guess about how the prime numbers are spaced along the number line. Computers have been able to give very strong evidence for this guess, and hundreds of papers have been written assuming its validity. It is one of those rare problems that is both intelligible to the uninitiated and of deep mathematical interest. But despite the efforts of generations of the world’s best mathematicians, it has yet to be proved or disproved ...

Posted by Jascha on May 1, 2004 5:52 AM

Stars and Signs Forever

Every day, tens of millions of Americans read their horoscopes. The predictions of love and wealth are, if not reassuring, at least diverting. The personality profiles -- based on the division of the night sky into 12 houses, each...

Posted by Jascha on November 30, 2003 12:19 AM