In 1969, 14 African-American players on the University of Wyoming’s nationally ranked American football team planned a protest against the racist policies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before their game against Brigham Young University, which is owned and ope … | Continue reading
All the great inventions took painstaking, risky, indirect routes to fruition. Has Silicon Valley really escaped history? | Continue reading
The pleasure is incomparable: if only we could weigh the value of all our delights, the sum total would enhance our lives | Continue reading
Is woman not the equal of man? Eileen Hunt Botting introduces Mary Wollstonecraft on the rights and duties of women | Continue reading
Even experts can’t predict violence or suicide. Surely we’re kidding ourselves that we can see inside the minds of others | Continue reading
‘There’s so much behind my smile you don’t even know.’Ninnoc wants to stand out from the crowd, but she’s afraid of what it might cost her. As she navigates the social pressures of high school, Ninnoc wavers between frustration and despair, her head vibrating with a constant hum … | Continue reading
In 1683 an Ottoman siege was repelled from the walls of Vienna. But it was far from a fight between Islam and Christendom | Continue reading
Orwell’s predicted it: citizens willingly buy for entertainment the very screens that can be used against us | Continue reading
Even experts can’t predict violence or suicide. Surely we’re kidding ourselves that we can see inside the minds of others | Continue reading
Sitting atop four large tectonic plates, Japan is a hotbed of seismic activity, with some 1,500 earthquakes striking the country each year. While many pass without major incident, some prove disastrous, such as the 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku, which triggered … | Continue reading
Even experts can’t predict violence or suicide. Surely we’re kidding ourselves that we can see inside the minds of others | Continue reading
The anti-philosophites are wrong: philosophical choices always play a role in building and testing cosmological theories | Continue reading
When faced with a difficult choice, our mind will represent possible options. Why did this capacity evolve? | Continue reading
‘Boundaries between reality and dream are blurry.’Seeking a ‘normal’ relationship after several soured romances left him depressed, Dirk eventually found support and stability in a relationship with a rather unusual new partner: a life-sized and lifelike sex doll named Jenny. Dre … | Continue reading
When faced with a difficult choice, our mind will represent possible options. Why did this capacity evolve? | Continue reading
The town of Santa Clara del Cobre in the Mexican state of Michoacán is celebrated for the copper craftsmanship of the indigenous Purépecha people. Its reputation for copper production dates to pre-Columbian times, and the craft still dominates the local economy today, with some 8 … | Continue reading
As Hannah Arendt argued, there is one common thread which connects individuals drawn to all kinds of extremist ideologies | Continue reading
When you think of AI, do you picture a multi-skilled C-3PO droid? A cupboard of appliances might be nearer the mark | Continue reading
When you think of AI, do you picture a multi-skilled C-3PO droid? A cupboard of appliances might be nearer the mark | Continue reading
Dandies in the age of decadence favoured synthetics over nature, nowhere more so than in perfumery’s fabulous counterfeits | Continue reading
Do psychedelics give access to a universal, mystical experience of reality, or is that just a culture-bound illusion? | Continue reading
In what looks like an austere, water-filled room, the French free-diver, dancer and underwater filmmaker Julie Gautier performs a breathtaking aquatic dance for several extended minutes before rising to the surface to release a blossoming bubble of air. Titled Ama, which is the t … | Continue reading
Do psychedelics give access to a universal, mystical experience of reality, or is that just a culture-bound illusion? | Continue reading
The rhetoric of hope was everywhere in politics yet now it’s rarely seen or heard. That’s why we need it more than ever | Continue reading
Envy is the dark side of love, but love is the luminous side of envy. Is there a way to harness envy wisely, for growth? | Continue reading
After 378 pages of intensely intricate logical proofs, one comes upon a triumphant sentence: 'From this proposition it will follow, when arithmetical addition has been defined, that 1 + 1 = 2.' The purpose of Bertrand Russell’s Principia Mathematica (1910-13), co-authored with Al … | Continue reading
Traditional halal practices seem to be converging with modern beliefs about clean and green eating. Is the future halal? | Continue reading
Envy is the dark side of love, but love is the luminous side of envy. Is there a way to harness envy wisely, for growth? | Continue reading
The elderly have always been with us: what do their ancient remains say about the human lifespan and ‘invisible’ old age? | Continue reading
After spending billions trying (and failing) to support beautiful ideas in physics, is it time to let evidence lead the way? | Continue reading
In Tears of Inge, the Mongolian-born, Montreal-based filmmaker Alisi Telengut explores a nomadic Mongolian ritual in which songs are used to coax a mother camel into bonding with a newborn she has rejected, generally in response to the pain of giving birth. Telengut’s 'little gra … | Continue reading
The truly resilient can reframe tragic experiences with humour and are able to shift from one strategy to the next | Continue reading
Artificial intelligence promises ever more control over the highs and lows of our emotions. Uneasy? Perhaps you should be | Continue reading
The ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy theory of 2016 claimed that Hillary Clinton and other high-ranking US Democratic Party officials were operating a child sex-trafficking ring from a popular pizzeria in Washington, DC. The conspiracy had migrated from internet message boards to the natio … | Continue reading
Artificial intelligence promises ever more control over the highs and lows of our emotions. Uneasy? Perhaps you should be | Continue reading
No, English isn’t uniquely vibrant or mighty or adaptable. But it really is weirder than pretty much every other language | Continue reading
In the tapestry of diverse social groups, the loudest and most extreme get heard. To whom should we actually listen? | Continue reading
After spending billions trying (and failing) to support beautiful ideas in physics, is it time to let evidence lead the way? | Continue reading
It’s hailed as the panacea for everything from cancer to war. Does research into its efficacy meet scientific standards? | Continue reading
Lightning can strike twice and people do call just when you’re thinking of them – but are such coincidences meaningful? | Continue reading
The foot is a most easily accessible tool and it had a lengthy history as a means of measuring before the introduction of national and international standards. So how were earlier standards created? In this short video from 1981, the British physicist Reginald Victor Jones demons … | Continue reading
Lightning can strike twice and people do call just when you’re thinking of them – but are such coincidences meaningful? | Continue reading
Private schools do not serve the public good – they are fortresses of status. Here’s how they could redeem themselves | Continue reading
Temperance was one of the four virtues identified by Plato's Republic as essential to an ideal state – a framework that was later adapted by Catholicism and Thomas Aquinas. Meanwhile, one of the five articles of faith of the Sikh religion is the kacchera – a drawstring undergarme … | Continue reading
You might have seen the cartoon: two cavemen sitting outside their cave knapping stone tools. One says to the other: ‘Something’s just not right – our air is clean, our water is pure, we all get plenty of exercise, everything we eat is organic ... | Continue reading
It’s hailed as the panacea for everything from cancer to war. Does research into its efficacy meet scientific standards? | Continue reading
A new interpretation of a classic psychology experiment will change your view of perception, judgment – even human nature | Continue reading
Was writing invented for accounting and administration or did it evolve from religious movements, sorcery and dreams? | Continue reading