Wired

wired.com — Note: I'm away from the desk this week. This post originally ran on February 28, 2011, and stirred a lot of online discussion; still fully current, and I suspect will be so for a while.] Is cognitive science full of crap? A biophyics researcher recently asked this of a cognitive science researcher.

wired.com — Wired Opinion: The flood of celebrity sexting has prompted folks to wonder, Why are so many famous people exhibitionists? The source of all this au naturel flaunting lies not in the culture of fame, but in the design of our sexual brains. Computational neuroscientist Ogi Ogas takes a look at our primal urge to expose ourselves.

wired.com — The Special Operations Forces Industry Conference in Tampa had a surprise guest on Wednesday -- one that had some people scratching their heads. At a black-tie dinner following the day's panel discussions, product displays and tech demos, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived behind a phalanx of State Department and Special Operations Command security.

wired.com — " There is no better, there is no more open door by which you can enter into the study of natural philosophy than by considering the physical phenomena of a candle." It was the above line that first caught my attention.

wired.com — Regular readers will remember my outraged rant post from almost a year ago, reacting to the news that the Central Intelligence Agency faked a vaccination campaign in Pakistan as a way of getting close to Osama Bin Laden's hide-out, hoping to prove his presence by using a vaccine needle to grab a sample of DNA.

wired.com — It's only been three months since the Pentagon's latest robot, one able to staple paperwork and answer phone calls with a single autonomous arm, showed off some of those amazing skills. Now, the freaky humanoid 'bot is back. And this time, he has two arms. And a name.

wired.com — Instagram could be headed for a meta implosion of ironic proportions. First there were cheap plastic cameras and Polaroids that people thought were cool, but seemed to take crappy photos, so they fell out of use and popularity. Then everyone had cameras on their phones but their photos looked really crappy.

wired.com — The current Google Doodle, a fully functioning web-based synthesizer in tribute to the late Robert Moog, prominently features a record button. Hundreds of cover songs are being recorded by users around the world using the Moog doodle. Here's a sampling of some of the best - and geekiest - cover tunes recorded with the Moog Google Doodle, as seen Wedneday on YouTube.

wired.com — Meet the Wave Glider, a wave-powered watercraft that is attempting to cross the entire Pacific ocean on the forward thrust of ocean currents. But this isn't just a world-record grab -- the Wave Glider also has the potential to rewrite everything we know about ocean exploration.

wired.com — Streaming video by Ustream Tune in at 11:30 p.m. PDT (7:30 a.m. GMT) to see a live feed of SpaceX's Dragon capsule in low-Earth orbit approaching the International Space Station. The event is a crucial second step as SpaceX works to become the first private U.S. company to dock with the station.