Voting is widely thought to be one of the most important things a person can do. But the reasons people give for why they vote (and why everyone else should too) are flawed, unconvincing, and sometimes even dangerous.

Meet the 21st-century pioneers who want to make spaceflight affordable, accessible, and commonplace.

Whatever services they take from the government, illegal aliens provide the U.S. with the ultimate resource, more people.

What happens to global politics once the undead are upon us? Luckily, political scientist Daniel W. Drezner has stepped up with a bite-sized book on the subject.

In "Ferraris for All," Daniel Ben-Ami defends growth against the charges that it causes inequality and decreases happiness and environmental health.

Kids live on the Internet. Why aren't they learning online too?

What is U.S. Cyber Command is supposed to do now that it exists?

How people market themselves when their business happens to be illegal.

Is a trade war brewing between China and the U.S.?

The surprising, and surprisingly tame, self-organization of pirates.

Americans are mind-blowingly bad at prioritizing--especially in polls that ask about priorities but allow the respondent to list as many "top priorities" as he likes.

One man's light pollution is another man's historic landmark.

How to speculate on oil without getting your hands dirty.

The academic-industrial complex tries to fail a degree mill.

Patronizing farmer markets is no guarantee of higher hygiene standards.

A pair of pioneers plan to set up a floating outpost in international waters, from which people can come and go, experimenting with different types of legal, social, and contractual arrangements.

Postmodern piracy is more than mere bootlegging. In its best manifestation, it is the creation of brand new products cobbled together from the sights and sounds of contemporary life.

Applications that seem trivial have become tools for building crucially important, often ad hoc, collaborations.

Bill Gates ignored all things political until he woke up one morning to find that his company was monopolist public enemy number one. Google plans not to make the same mistake.

The younger, richer, and more educated you are, the more likely you are to have Googled yourself, further suggesting that self-Googling figures are still on the rise.