Culture & Religion

A pair of Canadian researchers have arrived at a new understanding of boredom by examining what the word means to different disciplines. Our age may be the most bored yet.

A new study says that more colleges are dramatically redefining themselves away from the liberal arts model, with potentially dire consequences for higher education overall.

A study out of Carnegie Mellon University says that the more you anticipate guilty feelings, the more likely it is you’ll do the right thing even if no one is watching.

Specific Media, which took over the company in 2011, is in the process of creating an entirely new site designed around its most loyal constituency: musicians and their fans.

Revealed today at the Frankfurt Book Fair: The Beagle, a small, AAA-battery-driven device that is expected to sell for less than $13 when offered through mobile carriers.

A company now offers visualizations of audio waveforms as prints suitable for framing. Included in the collection are speeches from Kennedy, King, Reagan, Obama, and others.

Art.sy, which launched on Monday, hopes to give users an easy entree into the world of fine art with the help of hefty financial backing, art historians, and many art institutions.

Many think Justice Anthony Kennedy will cast the decisive vote ending affirmative action as we know it.

Rome is the latest Italian city to pass laws forcing tourists to show more respect by banning the eating of food at its many historic sites.

Now that the military dictatorship is dissolving, “five decades’ worth of bottled-up opinions” are coming out from many, many different directions.

Friday’s sentencing of five people found guilty of the “honor killing” of a mixed-caste couple is the latest in a series of decisions that have generated debate.

A new study from the Emory-Tibet Partnership showed that a form of compassion-based meditation helped increased test subjects’ ability to interpret others’ facial expressions.

New research at USC shows that the brain processes the movements of others differently depending on the viewer’s feelings about the person they’re watching.

Forget fingerprints: Technology is now available that can identify a person by their unique heartbeat. The one major challenge is getting people used to the idea.

Business journalism powerhouse Leigh Gallagher has some tough advice for her own, younger self: Be more aggressive. Pay attention to your career, not just your to-do list. And ask for what you want. 

A “nosy” smartphone app asks users 50 questions and displays results in real time.

Focusing on what the materials have to teach us is a staple of design thinking, and a powerful mindset for anyone seeking to create anything with structural integrity. 

New research in Britain is conducting MRI scans on people who have taken MDMA to understand how it acts on the brain and to possibly help those affected by PTSD.

Despite slumping sales, Burberry is continuing to use modern technology to help sell their high fashion clothing.

A new study says that sure, the carrot-on-a-stick method works to get citizens involved in their communities, but it doesn’t always sustain that involvement over time, requiring the use of other techniques.

TechShop, which bills itself as “America’s 1st Nationwide Open-Access Public Workshop,” gives the average person access to 2D and 3D building tools that are normally reserved for well-trained professionals.

Mitt Romney dug himself a deep hole this week when Mother Jones released a secretly recorded video of him speaking to a group of millionaires and complaining that 47 percent […]

A visionary developer wants to go beyond Google Translate to make the Internet available to anyone, at any time, in any language.

Are you convinced that your moral and political views are the right ones? If you were to lay out all of your views and examine them, would they fit together […]

Being an outsider has its benefits, not the least of which is an ability to think outside the box, according to a joint Johns Hopkins-Cornell study.

Scientists have long suspected that some people’s aversion to cilantro went beyond simple lack of cultural exposure. A series of studies confirms a possible genetic link.

Can’t get enough of young adult fiction even though you’re not exactly a “young adult”? According to a new study, you’re not alone…not by a long shot.

A team of scientists has come up with a way to make voice authentication simpler and, at the same time, much more secure. 

The influx of glacial researchers into the Himalayas has angered Nepal’s indigenous population, which claims that its needs aren’t being taken into account.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Philip Roth resorts to public channels to get a Wikipedia entry changed…and succeeds.