“DOMA’s principal effect is to identify and make unequal a subset of state-sanctioned marriages,” wrote Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down the Federal Defense of Marriage Act.
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It’s been a bad few weeks for RadioPhobia, the powerful fear of radiation that far exceeds the actual risk. From three different places come new examples of this version […]
In the early 1850s, Daniel McCallum, the General Superintendent of the New York and Erie Railroad, had a problem. At the time, the New York and Erie Railway was the […]
The group displays photos of inappropriate behavior in the hope that doing so will end a longstanding tradition of exploiting freshmen that has led to injuries and deaths.
Nippon Television Network is working with other organizations to provide elder-care monitoring services that will, for example, alert relatives if a family member doesn’t change their channel for an extended period of time.
A new study indicates an uptick in the number of people who have paid to access certain news sites. However, many still prefer to get their news for free, with social media growing in popularity as a source.
What an odd and outdated national value the British have.
The image above is an artist’s impression of what it might look like to live on the exoplanet Gliese 667Cd, one of three super-Earths discovered in the habitable zone of the nearby star Gliese 667C.
Two Hollywood studios have shortened the window between theatrical and home entertainment distribution to as little as three weeks, giving customers the option of seeing movies at home while they’re still playing broadly in theatres.
While the solution to sustainable population growth is elusive, there are few illustrations that present this global challenge in such clear terms as this video.
The National Security Agency leak is only the latest in a series of events in which “super-users” have caused significant damage to a company or organization. What, if anything, can be done to prevent such rogue behavior?
A little bit of philosophy can be a dangerous thing.
Ray Kurzweil’s dream of internal nanobots floating around our bloodstream making us immortal by eradicating diseases and slowing down the aging process may actually be a reality sooner than any of us […]
The idea of the “Eureka! moment” might very well prove to be the most useful concept that Archimedes passed down to us.
Why do religious people tend to be regarded as philanthropists while secular humanists are regarded as cruelly indifferent?
Don’t try this at home A man who expects to soon be blind has implanted a magnet into his ear, which can now be used as a wireless headphone. The […]
Today is a potentially big day at the U.S. Supreme Court, and that is not just because it is Justice Sotomayor’s birthday.
Long-term antidepressant use may be an invitation to diabetes.
One reason to have a liberal education—one that’s usually neglected by all those experts these days who are saying that the value of an education is measured by the money […]
Computer-generated models published in the journal eLife demonstrated how plants might regulate the rate at which they consume starch that they will need once the sun goes down.
By facilitating, instead of being defensive, Stephen Miles says you’ll end up in the higher place and you will be able to maintain your point of view.
The White House is now bound to issue an official response to a petition on its We the People website after a request to pardon former NSA contractor Edward Snowden surpassed 100,000 signatures within the first month of its posting.
Government cultural authorities in Uzbekistan have barred a number of popular musicians from performing their work live, branding the content of their songs as “meaningless”.
In this episode of The Amazing Adventures of Edward Snowden, our hero fools a cadre of journalists into believing he is en route to Havana in search of political asylum.
This week, The Supreme Court of The United States will hand down decisions on a number of major issues.
Here is what you need to know to stay up to date with the three biggest ones:
1) The court already ruled today on its Affirmative Action case, you can read the majority opinion here. A prospective student sued the University of Texas on the grounds that she had been denied admission in place of somebody who had allegedly been admitted based on racial factors. Supporters had hoped that a broad ruling might illegalize the practice of factoring race into admission across the board.
The takeaway from the ruling is not negligible but is not the sweeping change many people expected. By and large, the court kicked the decision back down to a lower court.
The other two each regard gay rights.
2) DOMA, The Defense of Marriage Act, which was signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1996, is under fire in the case of United States V. Windsor. The court did not offer a ruling, but one is expected soon, most likely Tuesday morning. The government is being sued on the grounds that married gay couples do not receive the same federal benefits as straight couples. You can read about the relationship to political policy here.
3) Proposition 8, the controversial California ballot issue, is also being challenged in the case of Hollingsworth V. Perry. While the legal matter is ostensibly a voting rights issue, this is being viewed as primarily an issue with same-sex marriage in America’s most populous state. Depending on which way it goes, and what the majority opinion dictates, this could have ramifications for the legality and the illegality of gay marriage in other states as well.
You can read more of our coverage on the development of this case here and here.
Today’s decision warns colleges and universities across the country that they need to be very careful about how they use race in admissions. But the headline is clear: they still may do so.
In Brazilian favelas, citizens are demonstrating to increase the pubic’s awareness of how funds and development projects for the upcoming 2014 World Cup will affect the country’s native population.
For six years, Nicholas Merrill wasn’t allowed to say who he was.
I love a good protest song, this one by Auditory Canvas couldn’t be more salient. The tune is dubbed entirely with particularly resonant segments of John F Kennedy’s “President and […]