As connection speeds increase and the ubiquity of the Internet pervades, digital content reigns. And in this era, free education has never been so accessible. The Web gives lifelong learners the tools to become autodidacts, eschewing exorbitant tuition and joining the ranks of other self-taught great thinkers in history such as Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Paul Allen and Ernest Hemingway. “Learning is not a product of schooling but the lifelong attempt to acquire it....

It’s a given that technology, specifically the way that it gives us access to more information, has changed every major industry out there. So why should professional sports be any different? There is afantastic articleby Jayson Stark at ESPN today about how statistics and information is changing the game of baseball, but the way that the information is accessed is the most interesting bit. Just like players on theBuccaneers and other teams in the NFL, Major League Baseball players have become attached to the iPad in a big way, explains Stark....

Surprisingly, newspapers are paving the way for using social media effectively. That theory has come true, as a recent case study published by theNieman Journalism Labshows how the LA Times has embraced social media alongside a smart SEO strategy, to bring its traffic numbers through the roof. It’s implemented a new social strategy that included Facebook commenting and a higher emphasis on the blog section of its site that has seen readers more engaged, and their visits increase at a time when other, larger, rivals are seeing a decline in traffic levels....

A renowned theoretical computer science expert recently released an astonishing physics pre-print paper that tosses fuel on the fiery debate over… whether humans could use wormholes to traverse the universe or not. Don’t worry, I’ll explain what this has to do with self-aware robots in due course. Fun with physics First, however, let’s lay the foundation for our speculation with a quick glance at this all-new wormhole theory. The pre-print paper comes courtesy of French researcher Pascal Koiran....

Where are the aliens? Italian physicist Enrico Fermi posited the idea that aliens may not exist simply because, if they did, there should be some evidence for them. Fermi wasn’t a troll. You can believe in aliens and also recognize that science requires actionable data. But what if both Fermi’s paradox and the alien enthusiasts are correct? What if we posit a sort of Fermi’s Alien where, like Schrodinger’s Cat, the creature exists in two paradoxical states that are simultaneously true....