Kate Groetzinger

The negative effects that television and video games have on early brain development are well-documented. Unstructured play, on the other hand, has been shown to help children grow into creative, emotionally intelligent adults. But as technology encroaches on our lives, it can be hard to heed this information. Childhood Unplugged, a photography blog dedicated to inspiring parents to make time for off-screen and outdoor activities with their children, was born from one mother’s effort to do this.

While the term Dad Bod went viral in March after an article by college student Mackenzie Pearson in The Odyssey, the Internet exploded in a veritable landslide of opinion pieces debating its merits. Was the Dad Bod empowering? Insulting? Anti-feminist? Amid the hubbub, cartoonist Rebecca Roher quietly released “Mom Body,” a comic strip about what happens to a woman’s body during and after pregnancy.

When Sandra Bland, the 28-year-old woman who was later found dead in a Texas jail cell, was pulled over for failing to signal while changing lanes on July 10, she refused to get out of the car. “I’m not under arrest,” she told state trooper Brian Encinia. “You don’t have the right to take me out of the car.”

This post has been updated.

“…there is nothing that our proud countries can do other than to say ‘No!’” (xvii)

The Rothko-esque stripes of red, yellow, pink and blue above are actually millions of tulips. Shot from the air just outside the city of Lisse, the Netherlands, these flower farms boast 800 varieties of tulip in bloom from mid-March to mid-May. Despite increasing competition from growers in Colombia and across Africa, the Netherlands remains the world’s largest exporter of cut flowers; in 2014, 52% of the plants and flowers traded globally came from Dutch farms.

A recent study has found that 95% of women who had an abortion do not regret it.

Complete with beach chairs, paddleball, and a fully operational snack bar, a vast ball pit has taken over the National Building Museum in downtown Washington, DC.

In Russia, even pretending to be gay can be hazardous to your health.

When temperatures shoot up, standards for personal space drop, as people rush to claim their spots in the pool. This summer, expect stiff competition at your local watering hole: a heatwave in Western Europe is threatening to break records, and on July 12, China’s National Meteorological Center issued the country’s first heat alert of the year. India and Pakistan too suffered devastatingly high temperatures in June—monsoon rains have only begun to bring relief.

“The most important component of calcio storico is the fear,” said Alessio Giorgerini. “Those who say they don’t feel fear are telling lies.”

The debate over the Confederate flag has ignited the US, leading to an uprising of public opinion calling for its removal from public places and government buildings across the South. In response, Alabama has removed the Confederate flag from its statehouse, and Mississippi and South Carolina may do the same in the near future. While commendable, and necessary, this seeming progress in the fight for racial equality is largely a distraction and has even created a rallying point for members of the Ku Klux Klan.

Every year, Patch Adams leads volunteers to the world’s most distressed regions to engage in an unexpected form of social and medical activism: clowning. You may recognize Adams’s name from the 1995 Robin Williams classic film Patch Adams, in which the comedian memorialized Adams’ use of humor in holistic healing. Like his character in the movie, Adams and his band of merry clowns really do visit hospitals and schools around the world, bringing laughter to people suffering from illness and oppression.

The Bachelor spin-off series The Bachelorette has long stayed above the fray of reality television by omitting gratuitous scenes suggestive of sex from its calculated mix of staged and real drama. Unlike shows like Jersey Shore and The Real World, The Bachelorette gives viewers a group of young, conventionally attractive twenty-somethings to ogle while managing to remain PG on the surface. The show provide an endless montage of dream date scenarios to entertain viewers, who, in turn, get to keep up the pretense that they are watching a show about love, not sex.

Although this year’s destructive flooding in the south of the United States left many without homes, and record-breaking blizzards in the Northeast have caused entire cities to shut down, extreme weather events can be electrifyingly beautiful. On June 16, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration proved it by releasing the stunning results of its first public photo contest. Contenders could only submit photos of the weather and of scientific forecasting tools. The winning photos below will make you rethink the skies and clouds overhead.

The third season of Orange is the New Black dropped on Jun. 11 on Netflix, three hours earlier than expected, to the delight of its many fans. Since its debut in 2013, the drama has been praised for its mainstream depictions of lesbianism. Its popularity seems to prove that finally, mass culture was embracing queer female identity.

In Tokyo, where the average apartment size is about 600 square feet, people know how to create comfort with little space. And in the city’s ubiquitous “capsule hotels,” a single rented room is often no bigger than a twin mattress, and can come as cheap as $10 per night. But even that isn’t too small to call home.

With an eight megapixel resolution and sapphire glass lens cover now standard on any version of the iPhone 5 or higher, today’s technology has created a new breed of artist: the iPhone photographer. It may not have the prestige of professional photography yet, but iPhone photography can capture equally impressive material, as these images reveal.