Humanities programs are under siege. Their budgets are getting slashed as critics say schools should focus on job skills. But essayist Mark Slouka believes this is a tragic mistake.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Every generation has critics who truly capture the cultural moment they’re living in. Today's may be Mark Greif, who has written memorably about the tyranny of food snobbery, the rise and fall of the hipster, and his own inability to love hip hop.
Filmmaker Astra Taylor wants to reclaim the democratic potential of personal technology.
Neil deGrasse Tyson makes the case for why constantly searching for answers doesn't have to dispel our sense of awe and wonder faced with the seemingly unknowable universe.
For more than 30 years, the scientists at the SETI Institute have been looking and listening for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence. And recently, some of them decided to get a bit more proactive. To find out how, Doug Gordon tracked down SETI’s senior astronomer, Seth Shostak.
Before John Muir and Charles Darwin, there was Alexander von Humboldt, the German scientist who shaped our understanding of nature. Now, he’s largely forgotten, but biographer Andrea Wulf says he was once the world's most famous scientist.
For a true case study of an awkward situation, just head to the nearest pick-up bar. Here's what not to say when introducing yourself to a potential mate, in the words of actor and writer Jesse Eisenberg.
When blogger Jenny Lawson tweeted about an awkward exchange with a cashier at an airport, she couldn't have imagined the flood of responses she'd get from fans recounting their own mortifying moments.
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