News

Understanding Pain

October 2, 2012

Pain is a biological enigma. It is protective, but not always. Its effects are not only sensory but also emotional. There is no way to measure it objectively, no test that comes back positive for pain; the only way a medical professional can gauge pain is by listening to the patient’s description of it. The idea of pain as a test of character or a punishment to be borne is changing; prevention and treatment of pain are increasingly important to researchers, clinicians, and patients. In honor of Pain Awareness Month, here’s an excerpt from Understanding Pain by Fernando Cervero. In Understanding Pain, Cervero explores the nature of pain: why it hurts and why some pain is good and some pain is bad.

Job Creation Discussion Has to Come from the Bottom-Up

This week’s Election Tuesday post is by Robert Pollin, author of “Back to Full Employment”. 

Web Campaigning: “Politics as Usual?”

September 13, 2012

September brings us another month closer to the 2012 election (where did summer go?). We’ll be posting election-related content each Tueday as we count down to Election Day. Today’s Election Tuesday post is by Steven M. Schneider and Kirsten A. Foot, authors of Web Campaigning, and explains how the use of the Web in political campaigns has changed (and also stayed the same) since the early 2000s.

Parents Day

July 20, 2012

Sunday, July 22nd is National Parents’ Day. In honor of parents, here is some economics-related parenting advice fromParentonomics, written by economist dad Joshua Gans, followed by a Twitter contest:

Monday Eye Candy: Total Modernity and the Avant-Garde in Twentieth-Century Chinese Art

January 25, 2012

Happy Chinese New Year! To celebrate the year of the dragon, today’s eye candy comes from Total Modernity and the Avant-Garde in Twentieth-Century Chinese Art by Gao Minglu, which contains 150 color illustrations and 173 black-and-white illustrations.