Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.

On some summer days in New York City, the air hangs thickly visible, like the combined exhalations of eight million souls. Steam rising from vents underground makes you wonder if there isn't one giant sweat gland lodged beneath the city.

Success produces success, just as money produces money.

Brain scans show synchrony between the brains of mother and child; but what they can't show is the internal bond that belongs to neither alone, a fusion in which the self feels so permeable it doesn't matter whose body is whose.

It is exciting to work with students thinking about issues of the day, from closing the achievement gap to finding a cure for cancer.

If you don't tell the whole truth about yourself, life is a ridiculous exercise.

Increased revenues, meaning higher taxes, will be a central element of any successful long-term budget plan, and President Obama is right to insist that the wealthy - the slice of America that has come through the recession in by far the best financial health - should provide those funds.

I think the idea of participating in your own health care and being responsible to the extent you can be of your own health, it seems to me a lot like self-reliance and individual responsibility. This cuts through the partisan divide.