Why I Let My Students Cheat On Their Exam

Teaching People Game Theory Is Good. Making Them Live It Is Even Better.

On test day for my Behavioral Ecology class at UCLA, I walked into the classroom bearing an impossibly difficult exam. Rather than being neatly arranged in alternate rows with pen or pencil in hand, my students sat in one tight group, with notes and books and laptops open and available. They were poised to share each other’s thoughts and to copy the best answers. As I distributed the tests, the students began to talk and write. All of this would normally be called cheating. But it was completely OK by …

Daylight Saving Time Is Rife With Human Suffering

Stop the Clock Resetting—Before It Kills Again

Even cows don’t like Daylight Saving Time. Come Sunday morning, when the milking machines get attached to their udders a whole hour too early, the otherwise placid bovines on dairy …

Biologist and Nature Writer Bill Streever

The Author of Heat Prefers the Winter Olympics

Biologist and nature writer Bill Streever is the author most recently of Heat: Adventures in the World’s Fiery Places; his previous book was Cold: Adventures in the World’s Frozen Places. …

These Days, Darwin Would Need To Know More About Jupiter

What Can Astronomers Teach Biologists?

The more we learn about the universe, the more it looks like the building blocks of life—organic molecules, amino acids, planets near a sun—are present throughout. Much of what we …

L.A.’s Metropolitan Dolphins

Working Off Malibu With Creatures Who Are a Lot Like Us

I turn the research boat offshore toward the outer reaches of Santa Monica Bay and deeper water. Flocks of western grebes float on the ocean surface, clustered as if they …