A recent study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has shown that high-level mathematical reasoning rests on a set of brain areas that do not overlap with the classical left-hemisphere regions involved in verbal semantics. Instead, all domains of mathematics tested (algebra, analysis, geometry, and topology) recruit a bilateral network, of prefrontal, parietal, and inferior temporal regions, which is also activated when mathematicians or non-mathematicians recognize and manipulate numbers mentally. These results suggest that high-level mathematical thinking makes minimal use of language areas and instead recruits circuits initially involved in space and number. This result may explain why knowledge of number and space, during early childhood, predicts mathematical achievement.

Since the Holocaust is an axial event of modern history, its misunderstanding turns our minds in the wrong direction. When the Holocaust is blamed on the modern state, the weakening of state authority appears salutary. On the political right, the erosion of state power by international capitalism seems natural; on the political left, rudderless revolutions portray themselves as virtuous. In the 21st century, anarchical protest movements join in a friendly tussle with global oligarchy, in which neither side can be hurt since both see the real enemy as the state. Both the left and the right tend to fear order rather than its destruction or absence.

Journalism may never have been as public-spirited an enterprise as editors and writers liked to think it was. Yet the myth mattered. It pushed journalism to challenge power; it made journalists loath to bend to the whims of their audience; it provided a crucial sense of detachment. The new generation of media giants that dominates journalism today has no patience for the old ethos of detachment. It’s not that these companies don’t have aspirations toward journalistic greatness. BuzzFeed, Vice, and the Huffington Post invest in excellent reporting and employ first-rate journalists—and they have produced some of the most memorable pieces of investigative journalism in this century. But in the pursuit of audience, they have allowed the endless feedback loop of the web to shape their editorial sensibility and determine their editorial investments.

Much has rightly been made of the problem of political polarisation, but not nearly as much has been said about the problem of political homogenisation. Both are toxic to public discourse. While the former makes for awkward conversations at the family dinner table, the latter buries difficult conversations. Where agreement is sought without a decent discussion, opinion corridors form, limiting the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse. Where all views are not heard in appropriate discussion, the only alternative is inappropriate discussion. And populist rhetoric cuts through this muffled discussion culture like a hot knife through butter, as the pent-up need to be heard surfaces.

Though they do not involve burning dirty fossil fuels, hydropower projects are not emissions free. Often, large dams flood vast vegetated areas. As a result, the vegetation rots under water. Eventually, this leads to the release of methane, a greenhouse gas 34 times as potent as carbon dioxide. In some cases, large dams can result in even more lifetime greenhouse gas emissions than equivalent conventional sources. And this does not even include the emissions resulting from the construction of such dams – cement and equipment-heavy projects that usually take several years to build.