You know, why not? Official Theory A Harvard professor and a ranking Pentagon official walk into a bar and start talking about alien motherships — stop me if you've heard this one before. No, this isn

When it comes to making predictions, Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity is pretty much unbeatable, at least in physics. The theory says that objects of mass “warp” the very fabric of space

03.28.2023 United States History With the ongoing financial crisis, it’s a perfect time to look to the Bank of North Dakota. It is the only state-owned bank in the continental US and was formed in 191

I’ve been to therapy three times in my life. The first time was when I was nineteen. My father recommended his therapist. He had found someone “down to Earth,” who didn’t dress stuffy. I should have k

"I'm so sick of this sh*t." Model Behavior AI has claimed its latest victim, now that Levi Strauss is apparently going to start outsourcing its model diversity to algorithms. Last week, Levi Strauss a

The Baffler , March 24, 2023 Fresh Hell The best dispatches from our grim new reality Jason Arias Word Factory W o r d F a c t o r y First, Do No Arm Take a walk, legs! See you later, head! Sayonara,

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson’s Mulder and Scully from the original run of The X-Files (pictured above) hold a special place in many a fan’s heart. And while they’ve reprised their characters in

In an interview with DPReview, Sigma CEO Kazoo Tamaki made some observations about the impact of computational photography and the rise of camera phones. The technology that has impressed me the most

Trial and error: Several issues make it difficult to gauge the effects of autism interventions. Aleksandra Konoplia / Getty Images The Experts: Isabel Smith Professor , Dalhousie University Kate Tsipl

Credit: Madrock 24/Alamy Stock Photo ChatGPT is the first nonhuman subject I have ever tested. In my work as a clinical psychologist, I assess the cognitive skills of human patients using standardized

A young mountain gorilla. Credit: Ibrahim Suha Derbent/Getty Images In 2011 Marcus Perlman saw a YouTube video of a gorilla named Zola spinning in circles while playing in a water puddle at the Calgar

There’s a short essay I love by the late writer Brian Doyle called “Joyas Voladoras” in which he examines various animal hearts to talk about the emotional capacity of the human heart. “No living bein

Here are four facts about two Boston sports franchises: The Boston Celtics became the first NBA team to ever draft a Black player when, in 1950, a Jewish head coach named Red Auerbach selected Chuck C

Autism is inborn neurology, not a condition that can be caused, “treated,” or cured—not in children, nor in adults. Even so, well-intentioned but misguided researchers as well as blatant hucksters are

WSJ News Exclusive U.S. America Pulls Back From Values That Once Defined It, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds Patriotism, religion and hard work hold less importance Some 38% of poll respondents said patriotism wa

For the past several decades, originalism has been the preeminent conservative legal philosophy. The basic idea of originalism—that statutes and constitutional provisions should be given their literal

I had a pretty good reaction to the first half of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds : I finished the first season yesterday with an Aliens homage, a faint call back to Shore Leave from the original series

The death of a parent can be heartbreaking. For Sero the zebra, the loss even changed his personality, according to his zookeepers. On Thursday, the male equine—born in 2021—was found trotting around

I like to think of the Hohmann transfer as the orbital equivalent of sending a ball down a hill to a friend. First you have to kick the ball to get it moving. This requires energy. The ball will conti

When the gentleman-​scholar Francis Galton inspected his fellow men of Victorian Britain, he found them wanting: “We want abler commanders, statesmen, thinkers, inventors, and artists,” he wrote in an

Welcome to my personal newsletter. I’m publishing weekly essays on digital technology and culture, in the run-up to my January 2024 book FILTERWORLD: How Algorithms Flattened Culture. Subscribe or rea

There’s a secret mode that comes with almost all large ovens, refrigerators, dishwashers, and other large kitchen appliances. It is called Sabbath mode , and there is a very specific reason it is prov

Credit: Katie Thomas When I began reporting on autism about 15 years ago, therapists would talk about achieving the “optimal outcome” for children on the autism spectrum. What they meant was changing

An early open-plan office, designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright for the S. C. Johnson company in the 1930s, was intended to boost productivity. Credit: Carol M. Highsmith/Buyenlarge/Getty Images I

what a perfect little movie hi everyone. As subscribers already know , I had a week last week that involved emergency surgery for one of my cats (she’s fine now, everyone’s fine, our local vet is grea

Derek Kedziora · March 26th, 2023 While doing a bit of research for another post, I was surprised to learn there was an actual technocracy movement in the US . While it never amounted to much, some of

One particular feature of the universe has puzzled physicists for generations. It appears to be uncannily well set up for the emergence of life. The universe exists as a fabric of spacetime, populated

March has been a mega expensive month for me financially. And this has everything to do with my inability to pick the right furniture for myself. I’ve always had bad luck with furniture, especially li

This story also ran on CNN . It can be republished for free. About ‘Navigating Aging’ Navigating Aging focuses on medical issues and advice associated with aging and end-of-life care, helping America’

Derek Kedziora · March 25th, 2023 This is an RSS only post. Check out the RSS Club to learn about the (open) secret. I was in an oddly public place listening to ostensibly professional presentations w

The one possible side-effect of taking Abilify that I have developed is having disturbing dreams. I dream every night, and, except for occasional nights when I dream of still-living people — like work

In The Civilizing Process (1939), sociologist Norbert Elias traces the emergence of the idea of “civility” to a single book by Erasmus of Rotterdam, De civilitate morum puerilium (1530), which itself

Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero / The Daily Beast / Alamy “There’s all these assholes who, for years, have been going, ‘Oh, you know, Dark Side of the Moon absolutely syncs up with The Wizard of

Our capacity to care about others may have very, very ancient origins, a new study suggests. It might have been deep-rooted in prehistoric animals that lived millions of years ago, before fish and mam

A federal judge has ruled against the Internet Archive in Hachette v. Internet Archive, a lawsuit brought against it by four book publishers, deciding that the website does not have the right to scan