Culture & Religion

The rise of facial recognition technology has resulted in computers seeing faces in nature where there are none. Does this mean computers are given to the same flaws as humans?

Being connected to the Web gives each individual access to the sum of human knowledge, but our eagerness to rely on information networks is sapping us of the need to remember things. 

There was a time when violence and hierarchy determined who was sleeping with who, but that was before women collectively decided that security was preferable to fertility. 

As urban populations continue to grow, we increasingly lead our anonymous lives in public. That results in people employing some interesting strategies to avoid interacting with strangers. 

When I heard the news of Jonah Lehrer’s fabrications on Monday — indiscretions that led to an apology and his resignation from the New Yorker on Tuesday — my jaw fell. Like […]

So you want to be Henry Rollins, kid? Bad news. The job’s already taken. The good news is that following Henry’s three golden rules gives you strong odds of success on your own, unique path as an artist/entrepreneur – the one that only you can carve out.  

The team behind the 2008 Beijing Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium are at it again. Herzog & de Meuron joined forces with Ai Weiwei to create this summer’s commissioned installation at the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in […]

The London-based School of Life’s Bibliotherapy program has a growing fan-base among Londoners who appreciate its relatively low-cost, non-medicalized approach to the anxieties that are characteristic of modern life.  

SETI’s new director Gerry Harp wants to see more investment in high-risk, high-reward science. In a recent interview, he discussed how the search for aliens is advancing rapidly.

Novels that are transparently taken from more original works are sometimes praised as the stuff of art and other times are lamented by authors who think they violate their sacred work. 

When a German court in Cologne ruled last month that baby boys could not be circumcised for religious reasons, Jewish and Muslim groups erupted in protest while a chorus of […]

Alison Klayman signed up for the job and that chance meeting flourished into a friendship with Ai Weiwei, China’s most famous avant garde artist turned political activist, during some of the most tumultuous years of his career.  

In the search for planets beyond our solar system that could support life, scientists have drawn up a more specific list of bio-signature chemicals, including sulfur gases and ethane. 

Higher-learning institutions are beginning to offer classes online, but this is just the start. Within fifteen years, concepts like grades and dividing students by age will also be challenged. 

Rather than talk of social media as representing a separate online life, we should admit that we can now respond to all of our experiences, which was once the domain of the artist. 

One of the world’s foremost authorities in IQ measurement says that over the last century, women have grown smarter at a faster rate than men, perhaps because they’ve been given more rights. 

Toni Morrison bucks accepted wisdom when it comes to calling divorce an irreparable tragedy and likens reality television to a previous public’s fascination with lynching black people. 

Throughout his extraordinary career, Pryce has turned his attention outward rather than inward – onto his fellow actors, the audience, the needs of the story. This, he reflects, is the secret to overcoming stage fright: remembering that it isn’t all about you.  

What’s the Big Idea? It was a quiet afternoon, as almost the entire team was out for an offsite retreat. It had been three months into my new job and […]

Happiness is not an unalloyed good, Kant says. Without the correct character and orientation, without a sense of duty, happiness is just an animalistic state of mind. 

Coursera, an online education company founded by two Stanford professors, announced today that a dozen major research institutions will join the venture and offer more than 100 free online courses. 

Yahoo’s decision to hire Marissa Mayer, a high-ranking Google employee who is also pregnant, came as a surprise to the tech industry but stands to increase women’s profile in the workplace. 

Modern relationships have become ambivalent, insecure and indeterminate, says sociologist and professional student of modern love, Eva Illouz. Could BDSM really be a solution?

Scientists argue the courtroom is a bad place for brain scans to serve as evidence because they cannot assess the full guilt of an individual. Other developments are changing how we think of justice. 

Researchers have found that adolescents who actively search for a personal identity are more likely to describe themselves in consistent and positive terms, reinforcing their values. 

The controversial biologist Craig Venter believes his team of scientists will create synthetic life within a year. Venter says the Earth’s booming population depends on such advancements.

Judging by the abundance of “guilty pleasure” TV shows, many people in America seem to feel overly constrained by the norms of public civility. The expectations of reasonableness and respect […]

Reductionists believe that memories, emotions, and feelings can be broken down to nothing more than interactions between brain cells and their associated molecules. In other words, “you” are your brain.

In an op-ed in the New York Times last week, Arthur C. Brooks tried to account for data showing that conservatives tend to be happier than liberals. Brooks began by […]

Despite the triumph of the individual in Western culture, society still determines what love is and how it can be gotten. Unfortunately, our modern view of love is set up to cause us pain.