There are hundreds of varying shapes of pasta.
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Cascatelli, the world’s newest pasta shape, is shaped like a waterfall and designed to hold a generous quantity of sauce.
Mary Washington helped her son develop into the leader he became. While her son was the subject of several portrait artists, there is no record that Mary ever was.
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Mary Washington raised George and his four siblings mainly alone, imbuing in George many of his best traits. Historians have focused instead on George’s complaints about her.
Popping toys like this one can relieve stress and anxiety and are just plain fun.
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Though research is still ongoing, therapists’ practical experience and adults’ and kids’ self-reflections suggest that fidget toys can be helpful for emotional and cognitive support.
The Puritans saw May Day celebrations as a test from God.
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The Puritans had little tolerance for those who didn’t conform to their vision of the world.
Reveling in dislike can give us a modicum of control in a world that inundates us with content.
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Loudly proclaiming your dislikes isn’t snobbery. There can be a power and poetry to putrescence.
Super League plans have fans screaming into the void, like soccer star Lionel Messi here.
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More competitive games between top soccer clubs is desirable but creating a ‘closed’ system would harm a soccer culture built on dreams, says the man who predicted the Super League two decades ago.
Transgender medicine uses a multidisciplinary approach to help trans youth live happier lives.
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Transgender youth have a number of research-backed medical options available to them. The multidisciplinary approach ranges from promoting family support to hormone treatments to surgery.
China’s Zhang Weili, on the right, has helped grow the popularity of the UFC in her native country.
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The UFC is eager to advertise its promotion of female fighters – while also paying them less and stoking a climate of fear to discourage unionization.
Nikki Luman works part-time for a public library in Sycamore, Ohio.
AP Photo/Tony Dejak
During economic downturns, local governments tend to cut spending on libraries, even as the need for their services grows.
The pandemic has spurred many workers to contemplate their futures – and whether they ever want to return to office life.
Edward Hopper, 'Morning Sun' (1952) via hermien_amsterdam/flickr
The pandemic exposed the contradictions and tensions at the heart of ‘creative class’ cities and jobs.
In an ongoing study, most of those interviewed seemed to recognize that they were happier in their 30s than they were in their 20s.
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A developmental psychologist explains how a period of life that’s often hectic and stressful can also end up being quite rewarding.
A volunteer plays with a rescued dog at the San Diego Humane Society on April 21, 2020.
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The demand was there.
Beverly Cleary’s beloved characters, including Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins, have enthralled readers for decades.
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Beverly Cleary once said that her fans love Ramona ‘because she does not learn to be a better girl.’
TV and movies are one way we understand people and places we’ve never had direct contact with – and maybe never will.
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An Italian media scholar raised on American TV assesses Netflix’s ambitious strategy to create original productions in Italy, Japan, Brazil and beyond – and distribute them globally.
While professional sports franchises have become more socially conscious, LGBTQ fans and players aren’t exactly embraced with open arms.
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Half of LGBTQ participants in a recent study experienced discrimination, insults, bullying or abuse while playing, watching or talking about sports.
‘The Basketball Game.’
Ron Tarver
Photojournalist Ron Tarver spent years photographing people largely ignored in mythic depictions of white cowboys and the American West.
‘Untitled’ from the series ‘Imaging/Imagining.’
Photo by Raymond Thompson, Jr.
Three decades after poet Frank X. Walker coined the term ‘Affrilachia,’ the region’s poets and artists continue to create work that probes the world of a people long ignored.
‘Onkel Toms Hütte’ – or Uncle Tom’s Cabin – is the name of a subway station in Berlin.
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Why did Confederate flags start appearing in the country’s anti-lockdown protests?
The pandemic has made it difficult for trans people to support one another in person, or celebrate important physical changes with friends.
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Trans Day of Visibility, celebrated March 31, is a day to honor the trans community and counter transphobia.
New York Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman routinely tops 100 mph with his fastball.
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We’re the only species that can throw at speeds that kill.
John White Alexander’s ‘Repose’ (1895).
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The ethics of idleness have been debated for thousands of years.
The golden ratio, which has been a key tenet of modernist design, may have origins in Africa.
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Long thought to have originated in Ancient Greece, the golden ratio that forms the basis of the Swiss design style may have first emerged in Africa.
Since so much our social lives are lived online, maybe it makes sense for our art collections to reside online, too.
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If you look at the reasons people buy art, almost none of them have to do with the physical work.
A woman visits New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art in September.
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Arts organizations have been particularly hard hit, but many may benefit from new sources of emergency government funding.
Entropy is the process of losing energy and this can apply to physics and social systems alike.
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In physics, entropy is the process of a system losing energy and dissolving into chaos. This applies to social systems in everyday life, too. Limiting energy loss can make social systems run better.