Big Questions Online has published my interview with Elaine Howard Ecklund, a sociologist at Rice University who has spent the last few years studying how natural and social scientists think about religion and spirituality. According to a new paper in the journal Sociology of Religion, Ecklund and fellow sociologist Elizabeth Long found that 22 percent of atheist scientists consider themselves spiritual, and they see their spirituality as more congruent with science than with religion.

But what do they mean by “spiritual”? The results show that these scientists have a very different interpretation of spirituality than that given by most Americans. Read the full interview at BQO. —Heather Wax

Big Questions Online has published my interview with Martin Nowak, who directs the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard University. For more than 20 years, Nowak has been studying why cooperation exists and how it evolved, and now he brings together his findings in a new book, SuperCooperators, written with New Scientist editor Roger Highfield.

When it comes to promoting cooperation, do rewards work better than punishment? Can nice guys finish first? And with only two episodes of this season of Survivor left, find out why forming alliances is so important—and why they always break down. Check out the story at BQO. —Heather Wax

We’ll be back on January 3.

Stay tuned …