Corinne Purtill

About once a week, Jordan Sparks receives delivery of a gray plastic bucket containing a human head.

Some things are verifiably true. In honor of these things—traditionally known as “facts”—museums, libraries, and other cultural organizations are taking to social media today to share tidbits and truths under the hashtag #DayOfFacts.

A moment’s judgment can affect the environment for generations to come, a fact beautifully illustrated in a prize-winning entry in the 2017 Underwater Photographer of the Year contest.

It’s a fun fact of business history that the modern credit-rating industry owes its existence, at least indirectly, to a group of 18th century British salesmen sick of being cheated by deadbeats.

It’s early days of 2017 still, but already it’s become apparent that this year science will play a larger role in public discourse than it has in the past, at least in the US. The scientific community has found itself at odds with the new White House administration in countless ways, and is gearing up for a fight that will take place in labs and hacker spaces, in the halls of civic buildings, and in streets nationwide.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a Supreme Court Justice, cancer survivor, one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people, and the namesake of a praying mantis species. The woman knows a thing or two about how to succeed at life.

The US Senate is expected to vote this week to confirm Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. A lawyer and politician, Pruitt has a less-than-friendly history with the agency president Donald Trump has appointed him to run. The climate-change denier has sued the EPA 14 times (paywall), criticized its “activist agenda,” and let the fossil-fuel industry draft rebukes to the agency on his letterhead.

How far would you go for love? Would you cross rivers and highways, risk death and dehydration, propelled onward only by desire and your short, stubbly little legs?

Lot 92 at Bonhams auction house isn’t much to look at—just a blob of mold encased in glass and plastic. But this mold is famous. It’s part of the original culture of Penicillium chrysogenum that led to bacteriologist Alexander Fleming’s 1928 discovery of the antibiotic penicillin.

Hey gentlemen! Interested in an herbal, all-natural alternative to Viagra, with no prescriptions or doctor visits required?

In 2006, the year the Supreme Court ruled that doctors in Oregon should be allowed to help terminally ill patients end their lives, US Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch published a book called The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia.

Nutella. So sweet, so delicious. So continental. And sure, sugar is its first listed ingredient, but it’s made of nuts, and those chipper health bloggers on Instagram are always eating nuts! How much sugar are we talking about anyway?

The trial had everything: snarling prosecutors, riveting young female witness, accusations of the most personal and damaging kind. You couldn’t not have an opinion, watching the drama unfold—or, more likely, reading or hearing a third-hand account.

Robots don’t do well in crowds.

Demonstrators posting photos and tweets from the marches planned in all 50 states to protest the inauguration of Donald J. Trump should remember: police may be looking at them, too.

As luminaries from Jon Voight to the Riverdance guy descend on Washington DC for the inauguration of Donald J. Trump, many critics of the next US president are planning protests closer to their homes.

Star Wars creator George Lucas announced this week that his long-planned Museum of Narrative Art has found a home in Los Angeles’s Exposition Park.

“Yes, Mr. Bedford is here.” That’s what Marji Klima, executive assistant at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, told me over email

It was August 1939, and a 26-year-old British journalist on her first assignment for the Daily Telegraph was driving on a German highway near the Polish border.

As kids, we’re taught the fundamentals of dealmaking: Listen, understand the other person’s point of view, be willing to compromise. The rules don’t change. But when those lessons aren’t properly absorbed in childhood—or when stress strips away our higher-level reasoning—even C-suite discussions can devolve into unproductive standoffs.

Increased demand and a poor crop last year have driven up the price of avocados to  NZ$4-6 ($2.80-4.20) a piece in New Zealand. That’s led to a peculiar crime wave: avocado theft.

Do you have it in you? The strength to reach down deep inside and do less, be less, achieve less than anyone ever has?

Lexington is a rural village of less than 1,000 people in upstate New York’s Greene County. While New York City is less than a three hours drive away, in terms of internet connectivity, Lexington could not be more different from the Big Apple.

Just put your camera away and enjoy the moment.