The use of lethal force by police officers in Ferguson and Staten Island has raised many concerns about the dynamic between police and citizens and underlined the fact that all time favorite fictional…
Ridley Scott’s casting choices for Exodus: Gods and Kings are emblematic of a larger, systemic problem in the entertainment industry.
Movie Pilot
Director Ridley Scott recently set off a firestorm when he dismissed those who criticized him for casting white actors as every major character in the recently released Exodus: Gods and Kings, while reserving…
Molly is one of the most popular party drugs in the US. But what a lot of people may not know is that molly is actually a form of ecstasy (MDMA), and this misunderstanding can put young people at risk…
Effective treatment, but no cure yet.
Chaiwat Subprasom/Reuters
HIV has infected over seventy million people but only one of them has been cured: Timothy Ray Brown. An HIV-positive resident of Berlin, Germany, Brown developed relapsed leukemia in 2006. To treat the…
Privacy is often thought of as the right to be left alone. Yet, our lives are embedded in relationships – with people, with corporations, with government, and with technological devices – that can’t be…
In 1989, I was a conservation student at the Courtauld Institute in London. During a class on varnish removal, my professor, Gerry Hedley, demonstrated how shining blue light on a picture with yellowed…
Congress raised the cap on how much an individual can donate to political parties in its spending bill that just passed last week, giving wealthy Americans a greater voice in elections.
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The political system’s indifference to the needs of the American people could not have been made clearer in recent days. At a time when economic inequality is increasing and the US racial divide is ever…
The consent policies of popular websites would take a month to read. Perhaps including a sign like this would be a simpler solution.
Shutterstock
We live in a world increasingly dominated by our personal data. Some of those data we choose to reveal, for example, through social media, email and the billions – yes, billions – of messages, photos and…
Even the White House has entered the fray.
Larry Downing/Reuters
Nearly 24 years ago, Time Magazine’s cover featured a photo of Katie Koestner, a first year student at the College of William and Mary whose date had raped her. The red lettered words, DATE RAPE, dominated…
Trawling for fish? You might be setting yourself up for a paltry haul next time.
Glenn Perrigo
Trawling – dragging heavy gear over ocean bottoms in search of fish near the sea floor – is arguably one of the most destructive human practices. Removing fish from the sea for an ever-hungry, growing…
Even at major NCAA Division I schools like Alabama, whether or not their athletic programs turn a profit varies by year.
Tim Murphy/Flickr
Parents, government officials, and tuition-paying students are all seeking solutions to the skyrocketing costs of higher education and the burden of student debt. Currently, public universities in America…
In 1954, the first director-general of the World Health Organisation, Dr Brock Chisholm, famously stated: “Without mental health there can be no true physical health.” More than half a century later, we…
Observers may be quick to declare social trends “good” or “bad” for families, but such conclusions are rarely justified. What’s good for one family – or group of families – may be bad for another. And…
Imagine that Brian promises to drive you to the airport but never shows up, and you miss your flight. When you confront Brian, he tells you that he remembered his promise but decided to watch a movie instead…
Does this look like community policing?
Flikr/Jamelle Bouie
Recent social unrest across the country protesting the police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the police chokehold death of Eric Garner in New York has reopened wounds and revealed deeply…
Imagine the smokestacks without the billowing clouds of greenhouse gas pollution.
JuergenGER
Earth’s climate is changing rapidly. We know this from billions of observations, documented in thousands of journal papers and texts and summarized every few years by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental…
New norms for what goes on inside this room.
image from www.shutterstock.com
The release of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program documents the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) against terrorism…
Creativity is almost always viewed as an asset to individuals and organizations. But it can also lead to negative behaviors.
Kraigsta/Wikimedia Commons
Creativity – the generation of novel and useful ideas, products, or solutions – is seen as a valuable trait for people and organizations to possess. Organizations harness it to develop innovative products…
Why are hospitals running out of critical drugs?
IV drip via Bhakpong/Shutterstock
Hospitals and pharmacies around the country are facing severe shortages of essential drugs. These shortages can limit access to critical medications and compromise patient safety, resulting in serious…
This tee shirt cuts to the chase
Reuters/Jason Reed
The Senate report on torture found that the “enhanced techniques” used by the CIA were ineffective as a mechanism for gathering intelligence. In fact, the report stated there was no actionable intelligence…
Alexander von Humboldt – sometimes called the last Renaissance man – was born in Berlin 250 years ago. His influence on science is still felt today.
The Guardians of the Galaxy – whose protagonists are a morally-gray motley crew – could be seen as a satire of the classic hero tradition.
BagoGames/Flickr
A. David Lewis, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
A beautiful assassin. A superstrong thug. A star-lost child of the ‘80s. A sentient tree. A gun-toting raccoon. Meet the morally gray protagonists of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, the film that raked…
Past your bedtime?
Image of boy with laptop via Mikael Damkier/Shutterstock
About three years ago, a teenage girl was talking with me and other students about using her cell phone late at night. She told us how she waited until her parents were asleep, then spent at least four…
Oil prices have dropped to levels not seen in years. It’s not all good news.
Reuters
The recent drop in crude oil and gasoline prices in the United States is a nice stocking stuffer for consumers this holiday season, but it could turn into a lump of coal. A global oil glut has caused the…
The STEM fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics supposedly suffer from a shortage of graduates. Conventional wisdom says there’s no one for employers to hire for science and engineering…