culture
The meaning of the cryptic text has eluded scholars for centuries. Their latest efforts include computational analyses seeking new insights into the medieval enigma.
A new book by historian and author Paul Strathern argues that the Northern European Renaissance has long been overlooked.
Bram Stoker’s mother survived a terrible cholera outbreak and recounted the ghastly scenes to her son years later.
Plato, Sun Tzu, and Buddha all lived in a “golden age” of philosophy that laid the foundation of modern thought.
From forgotten Hollywood movies to Frank Herbert’s “Dune,” science fiction illustrates some of our deepest fears about technology.
“Groupthink” gets a bad rap. In reality, we need groups to focus our thinking and to build on the ideas of others.
Germans are masters of building cars, cooking brats — and sitting while peeing.
Soviet censorship was thorough yet fallible.
But make sure you bring the fossegrim the proper offering—or else.
Raw food, paleo, gluten-free, detox, and ketogenic: All of these diet fads withered when subjected to scientific scrutiny.
The researchers rebuked writers, scholars, and public figures for lazily perpetuating the notion of widespread gender bias in academic science.
Rather than sending serial killer art to auctions, it should be sent to abnormal psychologists for research.
You can learn a lot about life through literature’s most unrespectable and heinous characters.
Glimpse into the ancient Maya empire through the writing of its own inhabitants.
These composers channeled the horror of the Holocaust and Hiroshima while honoring those who lived through it.
The deep-thinking oddballs of West Coast cycle racing valued mid-ride marijuana over sports science.
Nobody knows where the word “penguin” comes from.
How one man’s divine dream became a poultry-shaped reality.
One from New Guinea rose to the top in a recent study.
Some authors never saw their books score widespread acclaim—or even get published at all.
One hypothesis: “gossip traps.”
The curiosity of children is a national resource. Adults destroy it.
It’s a lot easier to point out things that are gezellig (adjective) than it is to define gezelligheid (noun) itself.
Chess could perhaps be the ultimate window through which we might see how our mental powers shift during our lives.
Mongol forces never fully conquered the continent, but they played a key role in its historical development.
Zombies aren’t a modern-day obsession. Throughout history, fear of the undead led to bizarre burial rituals all over the world.
Fortune cookies emerged from one of America’s darkest moments.
The multi-leveled constructions of metaphysics are the collective workings of a fantastical virtuality. Did you get that?