6 minute read. Why hasn’t two centuries of free voting curbed inequality? Jeffrey Winters, Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, says the answer lies in a blind spot: democracy was built to serve oligarchs all along.
5 minute read. Did Feynman get beauty and truth wrong? Massimo Pigliucci, K.D. Irani Professor of Philosophy at City College of New York, says yes — and explains why it matters.
Do probiotics actually work? Berenice Langdon, Senior Lecturer at St. George’s, University of London, weighs the evidence behind a booming supplement industry.
4 minute read. Are we watching another tech bubble? Dean Baker (CEPR) revisits the irrational exuberance of the late 1990s, when stocks from Ford to Cisco soared and crashed, and warns today’s AI giants may face the same fate as Chinese rivals squeeze margins.
S. Alex Yang (London Business School) and Angela Huyue Zhang (USC) warn that leading the AI race won’t keep America safe. Mythos-like tools make every nation vulnerable — and demand US-China diplomacy, not triumphalism.
Science is facing a severe crisis of credibility. While high-profile data fabrication makes the headlines, the real threat to public trust lies in a pervasive practice known as “tweaking.” Professor Thomas Plümper (Head of Socioeconomics at Vienna University) and Professor Eric Neumayer (Deputy President of the London School of Economics) break down how the subtle manipulation of empirical data is damaging the scientific process and how academia can fix it.
5 minute read. “A superpower that once felt invulnerable must now reckon with adversaries that can drain its coffers, bleed its allies, and upend its strategic calculations,” warns Brahma Chellaney of the Center for Policy Research, signaling that the era of cost-free US wars is definitively over.
5 minute read. A nation’s military is like a fire extinguisher — you keep one because you’re prudent, not because you want to use it, argues Lee Cronk, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University.
In this urgent geopolitical Q&A, Aly Kamadia, Editor-in-Chief of iDose Magazine, breaks down the catastrophic US-Israeli war on Iran, exploring the dangerous mix of regional ambitions, religious extremism, and asymmetric warfare.
5 minute read. Both Washington and Tehran share blame for the breakdown that led to war, writes Vice Provost Mehrzad Boroujerdi, tracing how mutual distrust, Israeli influence, and strategic rigidity led to war.
4 minute read. The US and Israel are bombing Iran — and SOAS Professor Arshin Adib-Moghaddam warns this illegal war could drag the entire world into crisis.
Is Earth the only planet harboring intelligent life? Aly Kamadia interviews Oxford-minted astrobiologist and Professor Jonti Horner on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, the Fermi Paradox, and why the answer matters.
It is arguably the single most captivating question in astronomy. In this month’s newsletter, iDose Magazine Editor Aly Kamadia introduces a conversation with astrobiologist Jonti Horner to see if we are finally close to an answer.
15 minute read. While reviewing two timely books, Elaine Coburn, Professor of International Studies at York University, debunks the myths of the “good billionaire” and examines how concentrated private power erodes public decision-making.
7 minute read. When we think about the future, it naturally seems to be ‘open’ – a realm of unfixed possibilities. But is this correct? Alison Fernandes, Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of Dublin, explores how time travel and physics challenge our intuition.