All Articles

Few business buzzphrases draw as much interest (and ire) as “disruptive innovation.”  Disrupt or die, the thinking goes. Old orders must make way for new. At the Barnes Foundation, home of Dr. Albert Barnes’ meticulously and idiosyncratically ordered collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces left just so since his death in 1951, three artistic innovators aim at questioning and challenging Dr. Barnes’ old order.  Mark Dion, Judy Pfaff, Fred Wilson: The Order of Things invites three award-winning, contemporary installation artists to disrupt the existing paradigm at the Barnes and assist us in seeing Dr. Barnes and his collection in a whole new way.

People who hold the belief that there are people who are “pure evil” are more willing to support harsher prison sentencing and the death penalty for those individuals.

It’s the oldest, most distant light we’ve ever seen. But where, exactly, is it? “We are told to let our light shine, and if it does, we won’t need to […]

Cars rule the roads, but how much would we save if we built better infrastructures to support bikes?

New research shows that women prefer someone modeling clothing that looks more like them.

“Mansplaining” and “Manspreading,” too, are thriving on the chatterweb. Like “Dadbod,” they satirize a world of ridiculous men who have no idea what’s going on.

The study opposes the notion that sexual equality is merely a goal of modern society that is mostly free of concerns over resource scarcity. 

Whether right or wrong, eloquent or simple, if your ideas are not phrased in ways that encourage others to listen and learn, they won’t do either. Even Robert Redford, actor, […]

College isn’t a time to curl up in a ball when challenging material comes on the table that might unsettle you or puncture your worldview. A higher education can be, and should be, transformative.

Nature invented software billions of years before we did. “The origin of life is really the origin of software,” says Gregory Chaitin (inventor of mathematical metabiology). Life requires what software does. It is fundamentally algorithmic. And its complexity needs better thinking tools.

Whether or not you believe there’s a problem, we’re all part of the solution. “‎Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on […]

GMO opponents hope labels will scare customers away and kill the technology. New evidence suggests that labels are more likely to encourage sales than reduce them.

Everyone’s coming-of-age music sounds like a personal revolution, but when did music change for everyone and all at once?

Researchers find that brand loyalty isn’t the same as romantic love; the feelings they evoke would be better compared to a good friendship.

Using long-range iris-scanning technology, your identity can be determined from across the room with extremely high accuracy — as high as someone taking your fingerprints. 

Sometimes, it’s the most unexpected ingredients that give rise to the greatest results in the end. “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” –Joseph Campbell When you […]

No matter how hard they try, comics never seem to be able to turn the genderist tide. As Jill Lepore points out, “They all look like porn stars.” Why do comics still get women heroes wrong?

The Taliban are undefeated. Should that earn them a state of their own?

The rate at which younger generations are eschewing organized religion is increasing, even from within the millennial generation, according to polls taken by the Pew Research Center.

Congress debated cutting $260 million from Amtrak’s budget as emergency crews searched through the rubble of a train accident that killed six passengers the night before.

Miscarriages are difficult to talk about, but the only way we can begin to heal is to let each other know we’re not alone.

Puritanism is not dead yet; the religious assumption of a nuclear family persists. Culturally, we’ve made great gains in same-sex marriage over the past half-decade, yet oddly the roles of women, in workplace pay and as caregivers, have not evolved much. Humans have long confused biology with theology.

When big companies put their brand on stadiums, does it change consumer behavior?

Because International has made shoes that can grow up to five sizes in five years, so no child has to go without.

The story of our neck of the woods, on the most cosmic of all scales. “We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened […]

Men and women rate the trustworthiness of enhanced profile photos quite differently. Regardless, in either scenario, you’re more likely to get a date.

How do the people around us influence our eating habits? Researchers discover that we tend to mirror our environment when consuming food.

Ronald Dekker, a labour economist at Tilburg University, says part-time positions enjoy “first-tier” status.

Exposure to another language may help open children up to another perspective, allowing them to become better communicators.

Trivializing mental illness by making jokes on Twitter may not endear your followers to you.