Bound by rules, yet constantly changing, language might be the ultimate self-regulating system, with nobody in charge | Continue reading
Despite the modern Western obsession with bodyweight, the idea that fat bodies are unsightly and unhealthy is largely unprecedented in human history. Nevertheless, the thin ideal is spreading, permeating societies where ‘a little extra’ has been celebrated, even until very recent … | Continue reading
From stereotypes via sedimentation to behaviour: how existentialism can help us understand ourselves today | Continue reading
From an anthropocentric point of view, big cities are one of humanity's most majestic achievements: massive, self-contained ecosystems built by, catering to, and inhabited by huge numbers of people. But you could forgive microorganisms for claiming that cities are actually theirs … | Continue reading
The casualties of the First World War brought a new understanding of human fragility and wholeness | Continue reading
As philosopher Susan Wolf argues, life is far more meaningful and rich if we do not aim at being morally perfect | Continue reading
Why your brain is like an ant colony: they both get wiser and more stable by using collective memory for learning | Continue reading
As philosopher Susan Wolf argues, life is far more meaningful and rich if we do not aim at being morally perfect | Continue reading
This court is now AWOL: the US Supreme Court has become irrelevant to the actual workings of the criminal justice system | Continue reading
After snowstorms in Boston, street parking tensions tend to rise, especially when car owners clear out spaces near their residences only to later find another driver has swiped their hard-earned spot. But walk the city’s streets in the wake of a blizzard, and you’ll notice a uniq … | Continue reading
Why your brain is like an ant colony: they both get wiser and more stable by using collective memory for learning | Continue reading
Partition in Iraq rests on Orientalist ideas – and overlooks what many Iraqis, minorities included, say they want | Continue reading
‘Soul requires spirituality. Soul does not require food.’Nonviolence towards all forms of life is a cornerstone of Jainism, a nontheistic Indian religion that dates back to the 6th century BCE, and today has around 7 million followers. To Jainism’s strictest adherents, even a wal … | Continue reading
A household is a miniature ecosystem with inputs, outputs and flows: thinking like this can make life a whole lot better | Continue reading
Death was the great leveller, but new life-extension technologies will widen the gap between the haves and havenots | Continue reading
Older than bronze and as new as nanowires, textiles are technology — and they have remade our world time and again | Continue reading
The multitude of female birth-control products on the market hardly means there’s a perfect option for everyone. From the combined oral contraceptive (commonly known as the Pill), to the IUD (intrauterine device, aka the coil) to the NuvaRing, the availability of choice can mask … | Continue reading
When attention is a limited resource, it can run out. Treat it as an experience, and it yields a rich sense of purpose | Continue reading
Pesky though they might be, houseflies are remarkable biological specimens – strong enough to carry up to half their own body weight and, as you’ve likely noticed when trying to swat one, exceptionally quick and nimble. For his 1910 short The Acrobatic Fly, the pioneering British … | Continue reading
Bound by rules, yet constantly changing, language might be the ultimate self-regulating system, with nobody in charge | Continue reading
If we don’t invent a legal framework for space colonisation the consequences could be catastrophic: the time to act is now | Continue reading
Rotten to the core: 10 findings from psychology that reveal the bad news about human nature and show us how to do better | Continue reading
Rotten to the core: 10 findings from psychology that reveal the bad news about human nature and show us how to do better | Continue reading
The women’s suffrage movement was saturated with metaphors of ‘shackles’, ‘bonds’ and ‘slavery’. Was it justifiable? | Continue reading
When is active civil disobedience – not just passive resistance – a justified response to government injustice? | Continue reading
When is active civil disobedience – not just passive resistance – a justified response to government injustice? | Continue reading
When the US filmmaker Matthew Palmer’s mother was 28 and childless, she received an unsettling prediction from a psychic: she would have a son, and her husband would die when their son was 13, but it would be ‘okay’. Uninterested in having children and skeptical of psychics, she … | Continue reading
That feeling of being both ridiculously small in the grand scheme and a powerful centre of knowledge: that’s the sublime | Continue reading
If we don’t invent a legal framework for space colonisation the consequences could be catastrophic: the time to act is now | Continue reading
In Sketches, the Russian graphic illustrator and motion designer Vladimir Tomin stitches together a series of short, reality-warping vignettes. Starting with mundane views of streets, stairwells and building façades, Tomin uses visual effects to manipulate each scene in surprisin … | Continue reading
When is active civil disobedience – not just passive resistance – a justified response to government injustice? | Continue reading
Aptitude and IQ tests are used to distinguish those young people who deserve a chance from those who do not. Do they work? | Continue reading
Nuclear deterrence continues to dominate international relations. Yet there is no proof it ever worked, nor that it ever will | Continue reading
From 2012 to 2016, Syria's capital Aleppo was one of the central battlegrounds of the country's civil war. In December 2016, government forces defeated and subsequently expelled rebel groups from the city in what was considered a turning point in the conflict. This short document … | Continue reading
You are not a blank page, and your brain is not modular: how your genes work together to shape your psychology | Continue reading
Are insects ‘philosophical zombies’ with no inner life? Close attention to their behaviours and moods suggests otherwise | Continue reading
The uncanny realism of Orson Welles’s radio play crystallised a fear of communication technology that haunts us today | Continue reading
The experience of love is culturally specific, and cannot be universalised. So why does immigration law try to do so? | Continue reading
The physics of panic: how physical motion works with emotional responses to explain the behaviour of a crowd in crisis | Continue reading
The chasm between producers and consumers leaves many of us estranged from beauty and a vital part of an ethical life | Continue reading
Time-lapse footage of thunderstorms, auroras borealis and city lights captured from the International Space Station (ISS) has become a somewhat common sight across computer and television screens. Because NASA releases these images into the public domain, they tend to be frequent … | Continue reading
Are insects ‘philosophical zombies’ with no inner life? Close attention to their behaviours and moods suggests otherwise | Continue reading
The experience of love is culturally specific, and cannot be universalised. So why does immigration law try to do so? | Continue reading
In California, men on probation for domestic violence offences are required to complete the 52-week Batterers’ Intervention Program, aimed at teaching them strategies for managing anger and breaking cycles of abuse. The programmes vary widely in quality, and frequently suffer fro … | Continue reading
The uncanny realism of Orson Welles’s radio play crystallised a fear of communication technology that haunts us today | Continue reading
John Lilburne was a secular martyr on the road from Reformation to Enlightenment: his war was for the people against tyranny | Continue reading
The Inka empire was open-ended, oral and loosely institutionalised, leaving it vulnerable to the Spanish conquistadores | Continue reading
Once parents felt children needed a little fear to grow up well. Today they are desperately protective. What went wrong? | Continue reading