At first glance, the notion of being colorblind -- or "not seeing race"-- seems like a good thing. Relatedly, the idea of a "melting pot" society -- where we all become one -- looks like a wonderful ...

For too long, philanthropists have taken a “color-blind” approach to grantmaking. Even when grounded in a well-meaning attempt at equity, ignoring the implications of race on the work they fund has ...

I was excited to come to Columbia after following many of my future classmates on Instagram over the summer before my first semester. From their posts, it seemed that Columbia students were ready to ...

In 1852, botanist Francis Guthrie noticed something peculiar as he was coloring a map of counties in England. Despite the counties’ meandering shapes and varied configurations, four colors were all he ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I help people communicate data clearly with graphs. Knowing that I am not a big fan of pie charts, a reader sent me a link to an ...

There’s an uncomfortable scenario that keeps coming up in my journey as an entrepreneur in community media. I’ll be in a business meeting with someone and suddenly the tone shifts. They’ll say ...

No matter how hard I try, I can never change my skin color. That’s true for every human on earth. If you stereotype me because I’m a brown-skinned man from Morocco, you reduce me to my skin ...

Imagine you're a mapmaker, ready to finish your masterpiece map of the world. The only thing left to do is add the colors. But how many colors do you need for the countries if you want to make sure no ...

Describing matter under extreme conditions, such as those found inside neutron stars, remains an unsolved problem. The ...