Culture & Religion

Timothy J. Burger has penned a fascinating article for Politico highlighting several gay men who worked in George W. Bush’s administration, most of them in the closet the entire time. The piece provides a glimpse into their lives and their allegiance to a president they couldn’t help but support.

Locked away in an archive for 150 years, a collection of 500 fairytales have been rediscovered by German cultural curators. The stories were recorded in the middle of the 19th century by oral historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth.

Professor Richard Dawkins was once again recently the centre of controversy after the media suggested that he had claimed children should not be read fairy tales: “I think it’s rather […]

Does choosing a wine feel as if you’re closing your eyes and pointing on the menu? Want to order like an expert when it’s time to select a bottle for […]

A popular football chant by Mexico supporters has drawn the ire of FIFA’s governing board. The incident is one of many recent instances where one group’s “tradition” is another group’s slur.

If your grandfather published a book about his dating habits, it might read something like Mansfield’s prose. Reading the conservative professor is like listening to a juke box and sipping on malted milk.

Thanks to modern folklore, many of us believe that men think about sex every seven seconds, amounting to 514 sexual thoughts per hour, or 7,200 each day. If that seems high to you, you’re not alone.

Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy hopes her new animated film Three Braves will inspire Pakistani children by providing them with relevant, local heroes.

As Disney’s Frozen continues to climb the ranks of highest grossing films, its popularity is beginning to pay dividends for the Norwegian tourism industry. The nation’s beautiful locales served as inspiration for Frozen’s fantasy Kingdom of Arendelle.

You are by nature self-deficient. Your constitution guarantees it, initially, chronically, and inalienably. Biology defying individualistic ideas now hide these once self-evident truths. 1. Though the opposite is claimed, no […]

Ben Casselman of FiveThirtyEight analyzes the results of the latest American Time Use Survey and draws conclusions about the ways unemployment sap Americans. Not only do the unemployed possess a higher risk for depression, obesity, and suicide, they also tend to lead more inert lives than their employed counterparts.

Yusuf Omar of eNews Channel Africa reports that there are over 1 million more televisions in South Africa than refrigerators. But now, more South Africans rely on newer means of accessing media.

No matter who you are, chances are you don’t see yourself as rich. That’s because the more money you make, the more money you think you need to become truly well-off.

South Africa is a young nation rich in culture and history that launched it onto the world stage. From Nelson Mandela’s inspiring leadership to unite the country after apartheid to […]

June 16, 1904 is when Ulysses, that tome that far more people talk about than have actually read it, takes place. It was also the day the author, James Joyce, […]

Recent observational evidence is helping to resolve the age-old debate over whether animals experience the same pleasurable feelings that humans do during sex.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg famously argued in Lean In that women need to stand up for themselves in order to secure equality in the workplace. But what happens when leaning in backfires? Some women have found that negotiating their job offers puts them at risk of being sent away empty-handed.

Nothing in nature works quite like money. Or seems as complex as an economy. I’d welcome counterexamples, but something seems fishy. 1. Here’s the usual big picture: Competitive markets allocate […]

The decision by the Tony Awards Administration Committee to cut the two sound design categories has been met with disdain by a nation’s worth of theatre professionals frustrated at the awards show’s continued focus on commercialization.

The World Cup begins tomorrow and the United States, simultaneously famous for its cultural diversity and its exclusive use of the word “soccer”, is having something of an identity crisis.

A clever device by the Turkish company Pugedon aims to increase recycling while providing food and water to stray dogs and waking up our kindness and humanity.

What you know about the world and what you know about yourself practically determine your outlook on life, and the ability of social media to transmit digital information instantly has changed all that.

New empirical approaches to psychology are better defining the introvert/extravert dichotomy. Behavior typically belonging to introverts better reflects a new identity category: Openness to Experience.

Ed Mitchell is a renowned pitmaster in Raleigh, North Carolina. He owns a restaurant in Durham called Que. Mitchell can be considered not only a barbecue connoisseur but also a […]

Clarity suffers when speech becomes cluttered with filler words and phrases. Cleaning up your diction is easy with these simple strategies.

Certainly among the postwar works, says Princeton University professor Peter Singer, is the notion that art challenges society’s prevailing norms. Oh, the irony.

Ai Weiwei. Kara Walker. Pussy Riot. Guerrilla Girls. Orwell. Art has long been an empowering outlet for speaking out against injustices. Politics aside, just the simple act of enjoying another […]

In the wake of the Santa Barbara shootings, in which gunman Elliot Rodger video-recorded his own misogynistic outlook on life, a national conversation began about the state of women in society.

This is an updated version of a Scientific American post:  In future economics should be seen as more like history than physics. Steven Pinker says, “No sane thinker would try […]

Animated GIFs have emerged as a new form of lexicon for the internet age. A recent museum exhibition highlighted 37 of the most popular reaction GIFs on the internet.