Opinion The Price of Gay Marriage Protesters marched in Manhattan in support of gay rights on July 27, 1969, a month after the Stonewall uprising. The Supreme Court’s decision affirming the right to same-sex marriage across the United States is a joyous moment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and…

Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was the first woman elected to lead a national branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. (The Episcopal Church via RNS) This opinion piece is by Diana Butler Bass, an independent scholar and expert on U.S. religion. She is the author of…

The Mental Health Issue Credit... Illustration by Andrew Rae E ighteen vials were rocking back and forth on a squeaky mechanical device the shape of a butcher scale, and Mark Lyte was beside himself with excitement. ‘‘We actually got some fresh yesterday — freshly frozen,’’ Lyte said to a lab…

If there’s an area of public life where new words are needed, Icelanders have a committee for it. It may be new medical conditions, or new automotive technology. Words are needed, fast. Otherwise people will get into the habit of using the (usually) English word. I met two women who sit on a…

Jackie Lay When I met Jonica Hunter, Sarah Taub, and Michael Rios on a typical weekday afternoon in their tidy duplex in Northern Virginia, a very small part of me worried they might try to convert me. All three live there together, but they aren’t roommates—they’re lovers. Or rather, Jonica and…

There’s no doubt that the idea of “letting go” — the advice to “let it go” — has become more popular in recent years. Especially in light of the popularization of meditation and mindfulness, it seems people are starting to see that there is a profound power in the act of surrender. In a layman’s…

The New Health Care Aaron E. Carroll answered readers’ questions about this article in a follow-up here . When I was a kid, my parents refused to let me drink coffee because they believed it would “stunt my growth.” It turns out, of course, that this is a myth . Studies have failed, again and again,…

Are you seeking a spirituality of joy? Are you looking for a community with a contemplative heart that pursues justice, peace, and the loving care of creation? The Third Order of the Society of St. Francis is an Anglican/Episcopal religious order for people of all kinds—single and in committed…

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Chris DiBona was worried everything would end up in one place. This was a decade ago, before the idea of open source software flipped the tech world upside-down. The open source Linux operating system was already running an enormous number of machines on Wall Street and beyond, proving you can…

Opinion The Cost of Paying Attention Credit... Viktor Hachmang A FEW years ago, in a supermarket, I swiped my bank card to pay for groceries. I watched the little screen, waiting for its prompts. During the intervals between swiping my card, confirming the amount and entering my PIN, I was shown…

In 1938 Harvard University began following 268 male undergraduate students and kicked off the longest-running longitudinal studies of human development in history. The study’s goal was to determine as best as possible what factors contribute most strongly to human flourishing. The astonishing range…

And lo, it has come to pass: All those images of cats that power the Internet have been put to scientific use. Well not all kitten photos, but the ones of them squeezing into boxes that barely fit them. Like this: Credit: Renata Apanaviciene /Shutterstock . Or this: Credit: Nataliya Kuznetsova…

Before 1948, there was something funny about the Southland's electricity. Plug in a clock from New York and it would lose 10 minutes every hour. Spin a record on a turntable from San Francisco and it would sound deep and drowsy. Some gadgets wouldn't work at all. The problem? Southern California's…

The average American's daily hygiene ritual would seem unusual—nay, obsessive— to our forebears a hundred years ago. From mouthwash to deodorant, most of our hygiene products were invented in the past century. To sell them, the advertising industry had to create pseudoscientific maladies like "bad…

Gray Matter How Reading Transforms Us Credit... Olimpia Zagnoli MOST writing seeks to influence you to think or feel how the author wants you to think or feel. The article you are reading now is no exception. We want you to think about certain things in a certain way. But there’s another kind of…

by The Upper Room on February 5, 2015 Today’s Reflection MY NAME IS SUE and I am an introvert. When I tell people that, they laugh because I can be really outgoing. They see me up front every Sunday in the choir. After the service, I change out of my robe and then head back to chat with the coffee…

Two people standing outside embracing and smiling widely at the camera. Source: Cardone Reproductive Medicine Used to describe something that’s been around much longer than the word itself, the phenomenon of homonormativity is considered by many to be destructive to the queer rights movement and to…

Messy pages, clear thinking. flickr user Kahunna Typing is fast. Handwriting is slow. Weirdly, that's precisely why handwriting is better suited to learning. Take it from research psychologists Pam A. Mueller of Princeton University and Daniel M. Oppenheimer of the University of California, Los…

Paying Till It Hurts An echocardiogram Len Charlap underwent in 2013. It showed a thick, damaged valve that was preventing blood (in color) from flowing adequately from the main pumping chamber of his heart, top, to the rest of his body. PRINCETON, N.J. — Len Charlap, a retired math professor, has…

You know those moments that just seem like something out of a movie? You know the ones -- where you're literally expecting an uplifting song to start playing right at the climax of a tear-jerking scene, which you happen to be seeing live before your eyes? Well, I just witnessed an Oscar-worthy…

I was on the phone with a good friend the other day. After covering important topics, like disparaging each other's mothers and retelling semi-factual tales from our college days, our conversation turned to the mundane. "So, how's work going?" he asked. For those of you who don't know, I make money…

Hi God, Thanks so much for the latest round of work. Really coming together. Few points of feedback: 1 – Really liking the whole light thing but not totally sure about the naming system. “Day” and “night” are OK but we feel like there’s more we can do here. Thoughts? Definitely need to nail this…

Truly awful events in our lives have a tendency to leave their mark. You might feel better as time goes on, but there's still a chance you'll be hanging on to some traumatic experiences after time has closed the wound. Writing about these events gives you a chance to properly digest how you feel…

Every year since 1966 the people of Gävle, Sweden, erect a huge straw goat for Christmas. The traditional Gävle Goat went up the the last weekend in November this year. The big question is: will it survive until Christmas? Many of the goats have been the victim of arsonists over the years. How many?…

TheKhanly's YouTube wares are counterfeit. The sound quality of this user's upload of Follow the Leader, the breakout album from nu-metal mavericks KoRn, is low. The artwork is grainy. No credits are given to Fred Durst, Ice Cube, and Cheech Marin, who all have guest spots on the record. As you…

It's a difficult world out there, people. War, poverty, brutality, corruption, social and racial injustice … these are not civil times we live in. Which is why, more than ever, we NEED the comfort and warmth that only life inside the Williams-Sonoma catalog can provide. Follow me, America. Follow me…

‘There’s no purely objective standard from which to judge anyone’s reaction, to anything, as being over the top.’Illustration: Paul Thurlby for the Guardian I f you ever fear you’re losing perspective on what matters most, I recommend searching a favourite social network for phrases such as‚ “Whole…

“You’re not, like, a total racist bastard,” David Amodio tells me. He pauses. “Today.” I’m sitting in the soft-spoken cognitive neuroscientist ‘s spotless office nestled within New York University’s psychology department, but it feels like I’m at the doctor’s, getting a dreaded diagnosis. On his…

oberto Chicas doesn’t use Uber anymore. Actually, he doesn’t do much anymore, not since he met Patrick Karajah. It was one night in late September, when Chicas, a bartender in San Francisco, did what many San Franciscans do: He summoned Uber to get him home. Karajah, the on-demand driver who…

The St. Louis county officials released photos of Officer Darren Wilson after his altercation with Michael Brown. We've finally heard from Officer Darren Wilson . Wilson had been publicly silent since the events of August 9, when he shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.…

I recently paid a visit to my sweet friend Helen Jane and was excited to find this book at her house. (The second book of the "2 Books in 1!" is "Barbie [i can be…] an Actress." We'll get to that later.) Helen Jane has two little girls under the age of six. I have a daughter who is almost two. "This…

Skittish, shy, and perennially lackadaisical, cats don’t seem particularly suited for warfare. Yet, as far back as 9,500 years ago (shortly after their domestication), they were instituted as pint-sized warriors in naval ships and rat-infested trenches. During World War I, the British army employed…