Randomness is powerful. Think about a presidential poll: A random sample of just 400 people in the United States can accurately estimate Clinton’s and Trump’s support to within 5 percent (with 95 percent certainty), despite the U.S. population exceeding 300...

Having spent five years supervising large financial institutions on Wall Street, I am rarely surprised by the latest news of banks behaving badly.

But even the most hardened cynics, such as myself, were taken aback by the recent announcement that Wells...

White Americans live on average3.6 years longer than black Americans. If you look only at men, the difference becomes 4.4 years.

As I found in a recent study, the main reason behind this disparity is that black Americans are at higher risk of most chronic medical conditions, such as hypertension, obesity, heart disease, stroke and cancer than other...

Over the past months, hundreds of indigenous persons and their allies have gathered near the crossing of the Missouri and Cannon Ball rivers in the ancestral territories of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. Using nonviolent means, their goal is to stop the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) that would connect production fields in North...

Many travelers visit the Pacific Northwest to eat the region’s famous seafood – particularly Dungeness crabs, which are popular in crab cakes or wrestled straight out of the shell. Locals also love catching and eating the feisty creatures. One of my favorite ways to spend an afternoon is...

This presidential campaign has two historically unpopular candidates. Both nominees are viewed unfavorably by more than 50 percent of the electorate.

Given their relative unpopularity, it seems reasonable to wonder if many voters possess mixed feelings about their party’s nominee this year. In other words, many voters may be experiencing...

WHO LET THE DOGS OUT? WHO-WHO-WHO-WHO-WHO? WHO LET THE DOGS OUT? WHO-WHO-WHO-WHO-WHO?

If you’ve ever heard the Baha Men’s 2000 hit “Who Let the Dogs Out,” you probably have also experienced its somewhat-annoying-but-very-catchy hook being stuck in your head for several hours.

Have you heard about the 1500-meter world championship run in which each of the top four competitors crossed the line faster than the winner of the Olympic men’s final?

Or about the guy who is the most accurate distance shooter in the history of archery?

Or the woman who may win seven medals?

If the answer is no to any or all of these...

As the summer of 2016 draws to a close, we mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of the most famous novels in the English language, a work that also recounts the creation of perhaps the most monstrous character in English literature. The story of how it came to be is no less extraordinary...

How short is an “instant”? Is it a second? A tenth of a second? A microsecond? You might think all of these qualify. What about 100 years? That certainly doesn’t seem like an instant, and to a human being, it isn’t, since we’d be...