Liam from San Francisco, California, is wondering about woo-woo. How did this term come to be an adjective describing beliefs or practices considered unscientific or irrational? Woo-woo likely imitates otherworldly sounds or ghostly moans. This is...
National Book Award winner Barry Lopez had wise advice for young writers. First, read widely and follow your curiosity. Second, travel or learn a foreign language. And third, find out what you truly believe, because if you’re not writing from...
deep time n.— «Johnson says. Just two years ago, Johnson paid little attention to global warming. He works in what scientists call “deep time”—when time is measure in millions of years. Until recently, there wasn’t much belief that...
apatheism n.— «I think you’ll find that the stance of simply not caring much about God or religion (“apatheism” in the jokey parlance) is much less common than you imagine. It seems to be growing as people get wealthier, but a...
