The origins of children’s literature

Everyone says it’s important to find a job you’re good at, but no-one tells you how to do so. The standard advice is to think about it for weeks and weeks until you “discover your talent”. To help, career advisers give you quizzes about your interests and preferences. Others recommend you go on a…

William and Mary Figel were the kind of American couple that now exists only in black-and-white television shows. They met in the summer of 1952 at Rainbow Beach Park on Chicago’s 75th Street. He asked for her number; she told him it was in the phone book. They married the following January and…

A century and a half ago, city dwellers in search of fresh air and rural pastures visited graveyards. It was a bad arrangement. The processions of tombstones interfered with athletic activity, the gloom with carefree frolicking. Nor did mourners relish having to contend with the crowds of…

Near the end of 2014, Uber co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick flew to Pittsburgh on a mission: to hire dozens of the world’s experts in autonomous vehicles. The city is home to Carnegie Mellon University’s robotics department, which has produced many of the biggest names in the…

How I wrote and published my novel using only open source tools

An ISIS member waves the movement's flag in Raqqa, Syria, on June 29, 2014. (Reuters) A recent trove of documents linked to the Islamic State reveals an increasingly pronounced phenomenon: Many of the young recruits to the extremist organization don't know much about Islam. In a report published…

Editors’ note: Upon further reporting, we cannot confirm the details of this survey, and, as such, are striking the contents. You’ve had it with this election cycle. The name-calling . The baby-banishing . The multitudinous email scandals . So you log onto Facebook and fire off a post pumping…

Sources close to John Turturro’s Going Places have confirmed some weird and exciting news for us: the film, a remake of a French sex farce, is actually a Big Lebowski spin-off centered around Turturro's Jesus Quintana character. Not only that, but the project has already begun filming with a script…

Close Coral reefs provide many species of fish shelter and protection. In return, fishes give back to the ecosystem by offering their urine. A new research, which was published in the journal Nature Communications , revealed that the lack of fish urine is behind the lack of nutrients surrounding…

A bumble bee collects nectar from the calyx of a marguerite in Berlin. (Wofgang Kumm/AFP/Getty Images) This story has been updated. New research has provided some of the strongest evidence yet that pesticides can do serious, long-term damage to bee populations. And the findings may help fuel the…

Ferrell will play Holmes while Reilly will take on the role of sidekick Watson. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly have played race car drivers and step brothers, and now they are reteaming to play Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous detective team. Ferrell will pick up the magnifying glass to play Sherlock…

A firestorm engulfs the Mormon Rocks area in the San Bernardino National Forest off State Highway 138 in Phelan, Calif., as the Bluecut Fire rages out of control Tuesday afternoon. Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images In Southern California, an out-of-control wildfire that ignited Tuesday…

Hundreds of pets in southern Louisiana have been saved from devastating floodwaters thanks to the heroic efforts of many. The deluge that started with heavy rainfall Friday has left at least 10 people dead , but responders have rescued more than 20,000 people and more than 600 animals as of Tuesday.…

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Most people never become mathematicians, but everyone has a stake in mathematics. Almost since the dawn of human civilization, societies have vested special authority in mathematical experts. The question of how and why the public should support elite mathematics remains as pertinent as ever, and in…

Jack Nickerson watched the papers burn. It was the afternoon of January 2, 1957, and an overnight cold snap had descended on northern Alabama, pushing daytime temperatures to near freezing. His neighbors would think nothing of the smoke wafting from the chimney of the large antebellum colonial he…

As organizations double down on cybersecurity measures, low-tech attack methods such as visual hacking—i.e., physically spying what’s on others’ computer screens and desks—are becoming more common. 3M’s 2016 Global Visual Hacking Experiment has found that the overwhelming majority of companies…

Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. Aug. 16, 2016, 11:26 AM GMT / Updated Aug. 16, 2016, 11:26 AM GMT / Source: Reuters By Reuters Hackers going by the name Shadow Brokers said on Monday they will auction…

A member of the NYPD’s counter­terrorism unit stands guard near the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, July 4, 2016. Greg Kahn Fifteen years ago this September 11, 19 terrorists, using four jetliners as guided missiles, killed 2,977 people—and enveloped the country in fear. It was the first sustained…

Just under a year since Nvidia brought the full desktop version of the GTX 980 to laptops , it is beginning to put an end to cut-down laptop chips altogether. Starting today, the desktop versions of the GTX 1080 , GTX 1070 , and GTX 1060 —with some very slight tweaks—are inside laptops from the…

By Until his dying day in 2014, Nelson Bunker Hunt, who had once been the world’s wealthiest man, denied that he and his brother plotted to corner the global silver market. Sure, back in 1980, Bunker, his younger brother Herbert, and other members of the Hunt clan owned roughly two-thirds of all the…

ATSUGI, Japan (Reuters) - Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Co ( 7201.T ) has come up with a new type of gasoline engine it says may make some of today’s advanced diesel engines obsolete. The new engine uses variable compression technology, which Nissan engineers say allows it at any given moment to…

Spy vs. Spy cover by Peter Kuper. (Photo: Courtesy of Peter Kuper/Spy vs Spy © E.C. Publications Inc.) One of the greatest rivalries of all time has been raging since 1961 between two figures who don’t even have real names. The pro/antagonists of the long-running gag strip Spy vs. Spy have been…

Rumor has it that Microsoft copied CP/M to create the first version of MS-DOS for the IBM PC. These rumors have been put to rest on numerous occasions, but consultant Bob Zeidman — who himself found no evidence DOS was copied — isn’t ready to let it die. In 2012, Zeidman used forensic software tools…

T ony Fullman is a middle-aged former tax man and a pro-democracy activist. But four years ago, a botched operation launched by New Zealand spies meant he suddenly found himself deemed a potential terrorist — his passport was revoked, his home was raided, and he was placed on a top-secret National…

Left, author William Styron at home in Roxbury, Connecticut, 1979; Right, director, screenwriter, and actor Nate Parker at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Left, ©Nancy Crampton; Right, by Jeff Vespa/Contour/Getty Images. In 1967, when William Styron’s novel The Confessions of Nat Turner…

Three days after millions of Australians headed to bed frustrated and angry, having unsuccessfully tried to complete the census online, we still don't know exactly what went wrong, or who to blame. Politicians have chosen to blame the only non-government entity involved - US-based tech giant IBM,…

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A robot paints brake drums at Webb Wheel Products in Cullman, Ala. (Dave Martin/Associated Press) Job insecurity is a central theme of the 2016 campaign, fueling popular anger about trade deals and immigration. But economists warn that much bigger job losses are ahead in the United States — driven…

Children on the front porch of a school in Breathitt County, Kentucky, in the early 1940s Marion Post Wolcott / Library of Congress Sometime during the past few years, the country started talking differently about white Americans of modest means. Early in the Obama era, the ennobling language of…

Nature | News Sharing Life came to ice-free Canadian corridor too late to sustain migrations of Clovis and pre-Clovis people. Ewen Callaway Article tools PDF Rights & Permissions Kenneth Garrett/NGC Early Americans left traces such as these arrowheads. Archaeologists need a new theory for the…

View Images Bananas have influenced the politics of many countries, and led to the overthrow of at least one government. By Daniel Stone PUBLISHED When it comes to fruit, I have a pet peeve. When people talk about fruit at cocktail parties, my only quibble is something semantic: how people use the…

I n the summer of my 44th year, when everyone did the ice bucket challenge for ALS , when friends and strangers and celebrities soaked themselves with iced water to “raise awareness” on my Facebook feed, I did not participate. I took note of these social media affirmations with some interest, but I…

The largest body of water in California was formed by a mistake. In 1905, the California Development Company accidentally flooded a huge depression in the Sonora Desert, creating an enormous salty lake called the Salton Sea . The water is about twice as salty as the Pacific Ocean. The ground beneath…

A small black device about the size of a pizza box could be the future of financial trading. Australian company Metamako’s network switch is able to route incoming information through to trading servers in just four nanoseconds, and can lower the time it takes to execute a full trade—from the time…