The sixth season of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story premiered on September 14th after a lengthy campaign of intentional obfuscation, including 24 trailers that may or may not have had...

In his new book, The Kingdom of Speech, Tom Wolfe challenges the idea that language is a product of evolution, claiming it must have come through some other mechanism—namely, mnemonics....

In the Netflix series Stranger Things, which has widely been declared the show of the summer, the tropes of 1980s popular culture are returned to us–some lovingly untouched, some turned...

Immediately after the horrific mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, politicians of all stripes expressed sorrow and sympathy. But many avoided any mention of the shooter’s specific targeting...

In February 2016, President Obama announced a groundbreaking nomination for Librarian of Congress: Carla Hayden. Boing Boing describes her as “rip-snortin’, copyfightin’, surveillance-hatin’, no-foolin’ ”—a silly way of saying she’s...

Racism has shaped our health care policy since our very first forays into creating a social safety net. After the widely circulated footage of primarily white police officers injuring and...

In science, the “big papers” (those that announce a major discovery or significant breakthrough) are usually found in the “big journals”: Cell, Nature, or Science. These publications are so high...

A long-term study to track the movements of commercially valuable fish species might have been a waste of time, thanks to crafty seals. Several years ago, fisheries scientists attached acoustic...

The last few days have brought reports of scientists finding a virus that may affect cognitive function in those infected by it. While you can’t begrudge publications their attempts to...

When “The Walking Dead” returned with its fifth season premiere on October 12th, one of the plots already in motion concerned getting Dr. Eugene Porter to Washington D.C.. Porter has...