ISIS Leader Takes Steps to Ensure Group’s Survival

Eric Schmitt and Ben Hubbard, The New York Times, July 20, 2015 The Islamic State’s reclusive leader has empowered his inner circle of deputies as well as regional commanders in Syria and Iraq with wide-ranging authority, a plan to ensure that if he or...

Windows 10 Signifies Microsoft’s Shift in Strategy

Nick Wingfield, The New York Times, July 19, 2015 Next week, when Microsoft releases Windows 10, the latest version of the company’s operating system, the software will offer a mix of the familiar and new to the people who run earlier versions of it on more...

Is There Such a Thing as an Intelligent Optimist?

Jason Gots, Big Think, July 19, 2015 It’s well-established (and completely obvious) that optimism is a bit delusional, especially if you don’t believe in some form of Heaven or live in a hermetically sealed Utopian community where life has been...

A Not-So-Transparent Attempt to Cap Drug Prices

Robert A. Ingram, The Wall Street Journal, July 19, 2015 At the dawn of the 20th century, life expectancy in the United States was 47 years. Today, it’s 79. Two decades ago, a diagnosis of HIV/AIDS or hepatitis C was a death sentence. The mortality rate...