Meeting of the Minds

No, the Net is not a cesspool of mindless guttertalk. There are some intellectual gems such as EDGE, a Website that offers the vulgum pecus a peek into an invitation-only mailing list whose contributors include some of the brightest minds in science and technology: Microsoft visionary Nathan Myhrvold (yes, Bill is a participant too,) MIT psychology professor Steven Pinker and neurologist Oliver Sacks, ofAwakenings fame. Though philosophically high-powered, the discussions are surprisingly non-technical: Recent exchanges dealt with the nature of numbers, and the blend of genetics, archaeology and language. (S.E.)