THE PHILIPPINE coral reef tank inside the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco is 25 feet deep and holds 212,000 gallons of water, making it one of the largest exhibits of living coral…
Aristotle claimed that poetry—at the time he meant the epics of Homer and other tragedies, which we now call fiction—was better than history. He argued that fiction tells us what is…
Changes to Massachusetts tax policy became law became last week on July 24, 2013. One change included a new tax on “Software Services” involving “prewritten” software.…
Anyone who has been to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe has had the surreal experience of seeing a real $100 trillion dollar bill. The world’s largest waterfall now competes with the world’s largest…
The tweet went out at 4:23 p.m. on June 28, 2012, and became the most popular ever produced by the cult automaton @Horse_ebooks.So far, anyway. As of this writing, it has been tweeted 7,663 times;…
Greene entered the bar at six sharp, a tall man in a dark blue suit, slightly crumpled, with an impressive head and a rather large brooding jaw. I almost fainted: it was my brother Orlando, a dead…
Here’s how you find snorkeling in the “garden” in the ocean near Block Island. It’s about 250 paces from my cubicle at the Block Island Times, out the back door, across…
In Uruguay, Mujica’s personal austerity made him an object of fascination. His U.N. speech, though, started a global Mujica cult. It’s so rare that politicians say anything that feels…
An interview with author and thinker Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a somewhat nerve wracking affair. He famously reserves his scorn for certain professions - journalists, for instance, to which this…
Francis Fukuyama made himself famous overnight in 1989 with the claim—in his essay “The End of History?”—that history as we knew it had ended with the victory of liberal-democratic capitalism over…
Ferdinando Scianna/Magnum PhotosMilan, Italy, 1997 The conditions in which we read today are not those of fifty or even thirty years ago, and the big question is how contemporary fiction will adapt…
These enviable youngsters appear to be the winners in the race we have made of childhood. But the reality is very different, as I have witnessed in many of my own students and heard from the hundreds…
You have the right to pursue a purpose greater than yourself and your company. You have the right to decide your own priorities and determine your own tasks in the dogged pursuit of that purpose. You…
'An awful lot of people seem to think they know the secret to writing well.' Illustration: Chris Madden for the Guardian What's the secret to writing well? As I've said
The players at Table 25 fought first over the choice of pawns. Doug Herold, a forty-four-year-old real estate appraiser, settled on the car. The player across from him, a shark-eyed IT recruiter…
I became a teacher in Africa and my whole life changed. I was happier, I had a purpose, and no one ever asked me, "What are you going to do with your life?" I had left home. I was becoming the person…
System maintenance time on Saturday, 05/10/2014 from 6:00 AM until 10:00 AM Eastern Time. All APA databases will be unavailable during that time. Record Display Citation Database: PsycARTICLES […
Grounded in the theory that ideas, emotions, and even events, can manifest as visible auras, Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater’s Thought-Forms (1901) is an odd and intriguing work. Benjamin…
8 December 1978 Listen to an Audio Recording of Isaac Bashevis Singer's Nobel Lecture (paragraph 1-6)* 10 min. The storyteller and poet of our time, as in any other time, must be an entertainer of…
BOYLSTON — Rabbi Katy Z. Allen and her tiny congregation make their way through the woods on a windy autumn morning, stopping now and then to sing and pray portions of the Shabbat service.…
I travelled with Bedouin in the Western Desert of Egypt. When we got a puncture, they used tape and an old inner tube to suck air from three tyres to inflate a fourth. It was the cook who suggested…
David Levine What is literary style and why is it bound to change as the novel rapidly goes global? “Style is the transformation the writer imposes on reality,” Proust tells us. We know…
For the first time, researchers have put together all the climate data they have (from ice cores, coral, sediment drilling) into one chart that shows the "global temperature reconstruction for the…
This is an interactive chart showing bachelor's degrees in the United States. Change the options to see the story in your discipline or university, and change the y-axis to suit the ratio you think…
On July 31, Aaron Belz -- author of three volumes of poems and editor of "Curator Magazine" -- posted the following ad on Craigslist: "Poet available to begin work immediately. Capable in rhyme…
Illustration by Yuko ShimizuTwo months after Hurricane Sandy pummeled New York City, Battery Park is again humming with tourists and hustlers, guys selling foam Statue of Liberty crowns, and…
Rand Simberg Ever since space travel began in the 1950s, space enthusiasts have dreamed that the exploration of space would lead to the colonization of space by human beings. From Arthur C.…
When a character in my recent book, “Sweet Tooth,” publishes his short first work of fiction, he finds some critics are suggesting that he has done something unmanly or dishonest. His…
Adults and children are spending more time interacting with media and technology and less time participating in activities in nature. This life-style change clearly has ramifications for our physical…
Paul Bowles, who has died aged 88, found inspiration from a long association with Morocco and her peoples. His semi-autobiographical novel, The Sheltering Sky, filmed in 1990 by Bertolucci, was one…
When I ask Hipstamatic CEO Lucas Buick if he lost focus in the last year, he immediately responds, “Absolutely.” Since laying off roughly half of his workforce in August, Buick has had…
It appears that law schools are about to experience a bit of economic justice. As the New York Times reports today, applications from aspiring JDs are on pace to hit a thirty year low. About 30,000…
Voters in Greenland feared that ministers were surrendering their country’s interests to China. Photograph: Bob Strong/Reuters The race for resources in the frozen wastes of the Arctic has brought…
Porter University Professor Helen Vendler, the preeminent poetry critic, has served on the faculty’s undergraduate admissions committee. Given contemporary admissions processes and pressures,…
In countries where many are performing surgery without any formal training, a Christian organization is educating surgeons who stay around despite little pay or prestige -- sometimes despite real…
Clay Shirky is a big thinker, and I read him because he’s consistently worth reading. But he’s not always right – and his thinking (and the flaws in it) is typical of the…