What Is the Meaning of Life?

For Sir Paul Nurse, Creativity and Community Are Essential Building Blocks

What does it take to create meaning in our lives? According to Sir Paul Nurse, a Nobel laureate geneticist and author of What Is Life?, supporting family and community as well as improving the world for others are key to fulfillment.

Nurse, currently the founding director and CEO of the Francis Crick Institute, visited Zócalo yesterday with Caltech developmental biologist Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, author of The Dance of Life, for a conversation that reflected on his scientific and philosophical insights into human life throughout his career as a geneticist. The Zócalo/Caltech event …

Einstein’s Genius Wasn’t in His Brain; It Was in His Friends | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Einstein’s Genius Wasn’t in His Brain; It Was in His Friends

New Scientific Insights on the Source of Creativity Show How Social Networks Drive Ideas

In 2017, the “Genius” issue of National Geographic credited Albert Einstein’s ability to harness the power of his “own thoughts” to predict gravity waves, a century before gravity waves were …

Why Scientific Discovery Thrives on ‘Creative Anarchy’

By Rewarding Bold Experiments, the Ecosystem of Funding and Research Could Produce More Breakthroughs

Science is one great success of our civilizations, from the erudition of the ancient Greeks and Arabs, to the practicality of the Renaissance and the Modern era. It is one …

Life Lessons From South L.A.’s Most Influential “Rag Man”

Renowned Artist John Outterbridge Has Spent Decades Mining His Surroundings for Material

John Outterbridge has spent more than eight decades noticing, saving, and recombining parts of his surroundings. It’s an artistic method. His sculptures bring together different found materials, and the resulting …

The Most Influential Southern Art School You Never Heard Of

At North Carolina’s Black Mountain College, Avant-Garde Artists Taught Students to Ignore Everything They Had Been Taught

“It must have been so much fun to be at Black Mountain,” a friend said the other day. She’d been up to Boston for the “Leap Before You Look” show …

Let’s Face It, California Is Nuts

From Education to Infrastructure, the Golden State Dares to Defy Common Sense

My fellow Californians, the state of our state is nuttier than ever.

In saying that, I do not meant to judge the sanity of individual Californians—to the contrary, national surveys show …