Smart Toilets: The Jetpack of the Bathroom
On first read, “smart toilet” may sound oxymoronic, but with the advent of receptacles that can play music, warm their seats, double as bidets, and even adjust themselves for elderly...
Cornel West: Neoliberalism Has Failed Us
...got William Barber and Liz Theoharis leading the poor people’s campaign during the Trump years, but the issue of focusing on poverty is something that ought to hold across the...
How Forensic DNA Evidence Can Lead to Wrongful Convictions
...forensic science in the administration of criminal justice is due in no small measure to the meteoric rise in DNA profiling,” wrote the law professor Liz Hefferman in a 2008...
Glenn Ligon’s “Blue Black” Exhibits the History of Race in America
...race in differing ways—sometimes overtly and other times more covertly, as in Warhol’s portrait of Elizabeth Taylor, Liz #4, which really emphasizes her whiteness. The themes addressed in the show...
Sundials, Sentiments, and S-Town
S-Town, the record-breaking podcast released on March 28th to a wave of critical acclaim and (some concern), was envisioned by its creators to be a podcast as novel. Host &...
Rory Gilmore: The New New Woman
Recently, Netflix brought us the Gilmore Girls revival–Rory, Lorelei, and Emily 10 years on, able to “end” the show as its creator intended. The return prompted multiple articles about whether...
The Rise and Fall of Pay Toilets
Ever wondered who first invented the pay toilet? The institution may just go back longer than you’d suspect. The Ancient Romans were not the first to have sophisticated sewers and...
Our Long Roanoke Nightmare
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...
Does Science Destroy Wonder?
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....