Discover Magazine: Peer Review

Discover Magazine | Peer Review

• Peer Review: What You Can Learn from Zombie Movies
  With lessons on science, consumerism, and the soul, a truly educational genre
  
  
• Peer Review: New Pseudoscience Patina, Same Snake Oil
  While positive thinking no doubt has its benefits, "The Secret" tries to justify itself in the language of modern physics in addition to pop psychology. And the message has certainly self-helped the The Secret's promoters: More than 1.5 million DVDs have been sold, and the book hit number one on The New York Times best-seller list.
  
  
• Peer Review: The Dark Side of Reality TV
  Scientists are re-creating infamous research on the Nazi mentality by getting subjects to torture computer characters. But we can easily find such experiments on real people. Yes, I’m talking about reality TV, an ongoing experiment in torture that picks up where Milgram left off.
  
  
• Peer Review: Dreary Driving
  Driving used to be about taking on the world. Now it’s about being tucked in for a nap.
  
  
• Peer Review: Person of the Year
  You may be Time’s Person of the Year, but big media is still in control.
  
  
• Peer Review: Outsourced Boredom
  Technology isn't ending mind-numbing work—it's moving it across the world.
  
  
• Peer Review: Fighting the Terrorist Virus
  If terrorism is cultivated by modern media, how do we fight it?
  
  
• Peer Review: Sharing Our Urban Organisms
  A new book contends that urban density makes eco-sense.
  
  
• Peer Review: Too Clear for Comfort
  The increased detail of HDTV may decrease our viewing pleasure.
  
  
• Peer Review: Invading Our Own Privacy
  We grumble about prying eyes, yet we love to upload our identities onto the Web.