One day several years ago, I was reaching the end of my first visit with a patient, J.J., who had come to see me for anxiety andinsomnia. He was a salesman for a struggling telecommunications company, and he was having trouble managing the strain on his finances and his family. He was sleeping poorly, and as soon as [...]

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Empiricism, England’s greatest contribution to philosophy. Listen here…
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I am not an American,” Mark Twain once proclaimed, “I am the American.” He had good warrant for saying so. Of all the nation’s writers he is still considered the greatest – it’s not merely literary distinction but something even bigger than that. From Theodore Roosevelt onwards, American presidents have routinely salted their oratory with [...]

Antony Flew, an English philosopher and outspoken atheist who stunned and dismayed the unbelieving faithful when he announced in 2004 that God probably did exist, died April 8 in Reading, England. He was 87 and lived in Reading. Read more…
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Homage to the iconic author of Scientific American's "Mathematical Games" column
Last Saturday afternoon, on a Japanese-landscaped hillside at the outskirts of Atlanta, several clusters of people were constructing mathematically inspired sculptures of metal, bamboo and balloons. Nearby, a magician showed a mathematician how to "throw" a knot. Others had their photographs taken in an [...]

"The Stories of Ray Bradbury"—a 1,112-page Everyman's Library anthology to be published April 6, a few months ahead of its author's 90th birthday on Aug. 22—is filled with fictional wonders. Among them: time-travelers who take refuge from a fearful future in an anxious past; a children's playroom where the videotronic lions have real teeth; an [...]