“The bad news for Dad is that despite common perception, there’s nothing objectively essential about his contribution,” says Pamela Paul at the Atlantic. “The good news is, we’ve gotten used to him.”
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“Today, black nonmarital births have soared to more than 72 percent among non-Hispanic blacks, compared with about 28 percent for whites,” laments Clarence Page at the Chicago Tribune.
“There are signs that technologists are waking up to the benefits of minimalism,” says The Economist amidst a technology culture that values as many new features as possible.
Astronomer Chris Impey surveys the possible causes of earth’s extinction. Whether it come from an asteroid or the sun’s implosion, the rock we live on is by no means an eternal home.
Should a new term be introduced to define a class of foods of higher quality than “organic”? Some growers say “authentic food” would eliminate undue corporate influence over food production.
In between the extremes of being a slave to your whims and trying to master every emotion, there must be a middle road. Psychology Today talks of a “probabilistic approach” to expressing emotion.
Buying a home could prove an economic disadvantage now that mobility is necessary to find new opportunities, but moving is an emotionally trying event, says Caitlin Kelly at True/Slant.
Scientology’s religious order, Sea Organization, has been accused by its female members of forcing them to have abortions, the reason being that children make the women unproductive.
Lead paint has been banned in the states since 1978, but if you’re like me, you still wonder about the paint debris you inhale in your home, in your office, […]
When Sigmar Polke’s family crossed over to the freedom of West Berlin from the oppression of East Berlin on the subway in 1953, 12-year-old Sigmar feigned sleep to add to […]
Over the last 20 years, the number of science and technology jobs in America has grown by about 4.2 percent per year—yet the availability of qualified U.S.-born workers in those […]
As Parag and Ayesha wrote yesterday, if today you cannot program computers, it is as though you have the skill to read, but not to write. For this reason, kids […]
Social media’s honeymoon is over, says James Rainey at The L.A. Times, but those bothered by privacy concerns and a distracted lifestyle are rethinking their relationship to Facebook et al rather than quiting.
Digging for the roots of the real estate crisis, Alyssa Katz finds an American culture that believed home ownership would repair broken neighborhoods by increase people’s investment in them.
The U.N. essentially acquiesced to a nuclear Middle East, says Massoud Parsi at Al Jazeera, by approving sanctions against Iran that were watered down by Russia and China to the point of being meaningless.
“The Department of Education is a great, burbling vat of waste,” says the National Review, and since it spends tens of billions of dollars annually with no measurable benefit, it should be eliminated.
Just as European soccer teams have physiotherapists for the World Cup, African teams have witchdoctors who invoke supernatural assistance to put their players ahead of the competition.
As the age at which people finish their education, marry and have children is increasing, a new class of individual between adolescent and adult is emerging, reports the New York Times.
“Having perpetual freedom in our romantic choices can be a mixed blessing,” says philosophy professor Aaron Ben-Zeév. “Boundaries are essential for human behavior.”
Chances are, you don’t know where Manning, South Carolina is. Chances are, you’ve never heard of this small southern town. I only know where it is because it was the […]
People who are consistently deprived of sleep are more likely to think that others are intentionally trying to deprive them of happiness than their well rested counterparts.
“Our tendency to err is also what makes us smart,” says the Boston Globe. Ridding ourselves of the shame associated with being wrong is the first step to becoming more intelligent.
German scientists recently ran four experiments showing that superstitious people performed better at their assigned tasks because they believed luck was on their side.
M.I.T. Professor Bill Mitchell , the director of the university’s Smart Cities research group, died yesterday after a battle with cancer, according to posts on CaringBridge and BoingBoing. When Big […]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has been in trouble all year. Pollster’s average of recent polls shows that 53% of Nevadans have an unfavorable impression of Reid compared to […]
In November 2009, nine researchers from MIT’s prestigious Media Lab were among the eleven authors of a paper* that espoused the value of programming as an essential skill for all. […]
Up until just a few hundred years ago most people thought that the Universe was a stable, static place that had been here forever and would continue forever. Today we […]
Loren Coleman is the father of American cryptozoology, or the exploration for animals whose existence is generally doubted. There’s more to it than Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, Coleman says.
A double problem faces the American arts: declining government funding and a shift of priorities in the private sector away from cultural patronage. A new approach is needed.
As women in rising countries like China, Iran and Turkey lead increasingly independent lives, they are having children later in life and in fewer numbers which could prevent the much-feared population crisis.