Race-related demonstrations, Title IX disputes, affirmative action court cases, same-sex marriage bans. These issues made headlines in all spheres of the media this year. However, thoughtful articles on…
How can parents who no longer live together continue to raise their children?
via www.shutterstock.com
The November 2014 elections included a North Dakota voter initiative emblematic of the vigorous debate taking place nationwide about child custody. The “Parental Rights Initiative” required courts to award…
Instead of dying out, Anti-Semitic myths have withstood the test of time.
Eight hundred years ago, a monk named Thomas of Monmouth wrote a bogus account of the life of St. William, a Christian boy supposedly abducted by “the Jews” of Norwich. A boy – “like an innocent lamb…
Trading floors like this one – at the old American Stock Exchange in the 1980s – are at the heart of capitalism and financial speculation.
David Foster/Flickr via CC BY-ND
The word “speculation” carries a connotation of negativity. And it’s probably fair to say that pretty much every financial crisis since the tulip mania of the 1630s can be attributed to some sort of mass…
The media spotlight has shifted away from Hong Kong and toward President Obama’s visit to Beijing, but students and activists remain in Admiralty and Mong Kok, and their demands for political change have…
I’ll have a clean cage with a side of fertility issues.
Mouse image via www.shutterstock.com
Mice possess a notable talent: they are excellent at making more mice. Their ability to reproduce at a breakneck pace is one reason they are often used as experimental research subjects. Thus, when Dr…
China’s President Xi Jinping, pictured gesturing at center, last month launched the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, a project the US hopes to stymie.
Reuters
In an influential speech in 2005, then-US deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick called on China to become a “responsible stakeholder” in the international community. To optimists, China’s recent efforts…
In Interstellar, Matthew McConaughey plays the protagonist, Cooper, who wears many hats: everyman farmer, laconic space hero, grieving father.
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
At about the midway point of Interstellar, a spacecraft descends into the atmosphere of a pristine white planet. Gliding downwards, the tip of the craft brushes against a cloud, and the cloud shatters…
Nutritious meal inside? Maybe, maybe not.
Lunchbox image via www.shutterstock.com.
Ravenous students, busy parents, nutrition professionals and school officials all have their own ideas about what belongs on the school lunch table. Plenty of criticism centers on the unhealthiness of…
Barriers around bridges could save lives.
rcgtrrz/Flickr
On April 15, 2014 a man jumped to his death from the O'Callaghan-Tillman Memorial Bridge – a massive, new concrete arch that soars over the Hoover Dam. He was the eighth known person to do so since the…
What are the similarities between 28 and 44?
Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Smithsonian Institution
The National Security Agency’s eavesdropping on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone calls. The United States Postal Service’s computers recording names and addresses on selected mail. The Obama Administration…
Across California there are plenty of signs of just how dry it’s been, such as here in Topanga Canyon near Los Angeles.
wasim muklashy/Flickr via CC BY-NC-SA
Last January, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a State of Emergency following projections of severe drought. State bureaucrats and local officials jumped into action and mandated any number of…
A relieved and re-elected Sam Brownback.
Mark Kauzlarich/Reuters
The 2014 midterm elections were full of surprises, mostly bad for the Democratic Party. Many Democratic candidates were defeated in races where the polls showed them with small but consistent leads. Chief…
Just who were the voteres these elections?
Carlo Allegri/Reuters
Editor’s note: voter turnout in this year’s midterm elections - 36.6% - was lower than in the 2010 midterms (40.9%.) According to the Pew Research Center the “party of non-voters” is more racially diverse…
Canada’s First Nation women are going missing but is the government listening?
Chris Wattie/Reuters
In August 2014, Tina Fontaine’s body was pulled from the Red River in Winnipeg Manitoba, stuffed in a garbage bag by her killer. Her disappearance had been reported to the police by child protection workers…
Congress has recently stepped up its efforts to reform the copyright system, which is woefully inadequate to deal with today’s rapidly evolving communication technologies. These efforts began early last…
When superheroes die on the page, fans have learned not to mourn their deaths.
FRacco/Wikimedia Commons
A. David Lewis, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
Among comic book fans, there’s the joke that the only characters in superhero comics who stay dead are Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben, Batman’s parents, and Captain America’s sidekick Bucky. For everybody else…
The author posing with a fully-functional model of the Curiosity rover on Earth, not Mars.
“All systems go!” I said cautiously with a long sigh of relief. I had approved plans for the first soil analysis that would give humankind clues to the past and future habitability of Mars. One small word…
It doesn’t have to be like this.
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
It sounds like a radical idea. Stop incarcerating women, and close down women’s prisons. But in the UK, there is a growing movement, sponsored by a peer in the House of Lords, to do just that. The argument…
When we talk about sexting, are we focusing on the real risks?
Image of people texting from www.shutterstock.com
Stories of teens taking and sending a naked picture of themselves with their phones have been all over the news media in recent years. The outcome? Shocking, according to reports which have suggested that…
Prop 91 - just one of three ballot initiatives on marijuana decriminalization
Steve Dipaola/Reuters
Editor’s note: There were 146 state-wide ballot measures up for consideration by voters in this week’s midterm elections, covering all manner of controversial issues – from abortion and guns to minimum…
The man to watch: new Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
No denying it, Tuesday was a big day for Republicans. They took control of the Senate, expanded their majority in the House, and added to the number of governorships they hold. The Senate outcome is rightly…
It’s a new team in charge of the Senate
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Midterm elections in American politics are akin to a reset button and on November 4, 2014 the American people pushed that reset button in a big way. The Founders of the American Constitution set up an…
Better antimicrobial stewardship could curb infection rates.
Global Panorama/Flickr
Going to the hospital can save your life, but it is not without risks. Patients can be exposed to dangerous infections while receiving treatment. In the United States, health care-associated infections…
Carolina Muñoz Marin, an amateur kickboxer from Costa Rica, is featured in “Meet the Mormons.”
Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
In October the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released its new documentary Meet the Mormons to wide theatrical distribution. The film depicts the lives of six individuals – two women and four…