Sina Grace started studying superheroes seriously when he was four years old. “I’d copy Batman stories, and draw them on printer paper,” says the storyteller…
AEROSOL ART
A judge is poised to decide whether graffiti can be protected by law
Graffiti’s transformation from a kind of vandalism to a high art form is almost complete. In the last half century, street art has evolved from…
REST IN PEACE?
What happens to your email after you die?
Life keeps us so busy writing emails that most of us haven’t considered what happens to our electronic communications when we’re dead. Can they be…
SOCIAL STUDIES
Peer pressure forced whales and dolphins to evolve big brains, like humans
The human brain has evolved and expanded over millennia to accommodate our ever-more-complex needs and those of our societies. This process is known as “encephalization”…
HERB HERSTORY
Legal weed is an amazing business opportunity for women
Jane West is all about Mary Jane. The former corporate-event planner from the suburbs of Denver, Colorado founded an eponymous cannabis lifestyle brand and a…
DECEPTICONS
Scientists designed a robotic skin that can camouflage itself like an octopus
Imagine if you could disappear into the background at opportune occasions, blending into the wallpaper when the boss threatens or changing shape when a date…
SIT TIGHT
Our obsession with mindfulness is based on limited scientific evidence
Mindfulness practices are promoted at major corporations like Google, offered as psychotherapy via the National Health Service in the UK, taught to about 6,000 school…
THINGS CHANGE
The decline of the large US family, in charts
Ask almost any American woman today if she’d raise nine kids and she’d likely reply, “Hell, no.” Considering the attention and expense children demand, such…
PORK PROBLEMS
Radioactive wild boars in Sweden are eating nuclear mushrooms
Radioactive wild boars currently roaming central and northern Sweden are proof positive that nuclear disasters have long-term environmental impacts, both near and far from where…
GRAPES OF WRATH
The real victims of the California wildfires are not the customers of the Napa wine industry
The deadly wildfires raging across northern California are destroying lives and livelihoods beyond those of its renowned winemakers. The region’s scenic wine country—beloved by tourists—is…
CELEBR-8 OCT. 8
Humans had to evolve to acknowledge octopus consciousness
Octopuses are popular these days, the subjects of numerous scientific studies and books in which humans acknowledge their intelligence, consciousness, and potential to shed light…
SPECIAL SPICE
A definition of “love” from the US Food and Drug Administration
Professional and home chefs, everywhere and forever, have claimed to rely on one special, ineffable spice that makes any dish extra-nice. Officially, however, love is…
