Ephrat Livni

All successful communications are a small miracle—it’s not easy to understand others and be understood. But if you’ve ever traveled to a foreign country and struggled to figure out how to line up at a store, greet a colleague, or buy a friend a drink, you know that miscommunications increase when we speak across cultures, as we all do in a globalized society, whether we’re working in our home countries or abroad.

The next time someone tells you to smile for the camera, feel free to frown and respectfully decline. While conventional wisdom holds that a teeth-baring grin makes you appear more attractive, research suggests that smiling in photos can have downsides.

Comedian Bill Cosby’s criminal trial concluded with a guilty verdict on April 26, but his trials aren’t over. There’s still a long and arduous legal process ahead.

Going with the flow isn’t just the cool thing to do. According to a prominent theory of physics, it’s a rule of evolution that dictates the design of all things and ensures individual survival.

A crested macaque with a knack for photography lost “his” copyright lawsuit on April 23. But the case demonstrates that animals can make constitutional claims, and may someday even have rights like those of other “legal people.”

Donald Trump’s controversial “travel ban” excludes about 150 million people from entering the US. If it’s affirmed by the US Supreme Court in an upcoming case, it could also have far-reaching consequences for many more.

Pop star Taylor Swift moved to shake off attorney’s fees in a recent copyright infringement case—and learned that players can’t be haters, nor can they push their luck. 

US Supreme Court justices have tough jobs. They’re charged with extremely grave duties, deciding matters of national import. Judging can be fun, however, and legal tales about serious disputes are often humorous and very rock ‘n’ roll—as illustrated by the recent matter of Peaches’ wild house party (pdf) in Washington, DC.

Perfect vision is great. But like any advantage it comes with limitations. Those with ease don’t develop the same unique senses and strengths as someone who must overcome obstacles, people like Lana Awad, a neurotech engineer at CTRL-labs in New York, who diagnosed her own degenerative eye disease with a high school science textbook as a teen in Syria and went on to teach at Harvard University.

Don’t you wish everyone would just act more normal, like you? I know I do.

Even with the right skills, few artists can make a career from a dream. Getting recognition for abilities is an uphill battle, and the luckiest—those who gain a lifetime of international success—tend to only be remembered for a single thing after death.

We watch athletes compete and marvel at their feats because athleticism reminds us of the potential for human greatness. The 670 competitors in Korea for the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games on March 9-18, however, take awesome to another level.

Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh probably makes for a very good houseguest. He abides by a simple practice: Whenever you visit someone’s home, do their dishes for them.

Cursing may make the linguistically prudish mad, but it isn’t a bad habit. In fact, it’s fucking fantastic!

You might think someone who gets paid to predict the future would be mad for gadgets and forever spouting off on social media. But you’d be wrong. Writer and futurist Richard Watson may teach London business students and Silicon Valley tech companies how to think about crafting tools for tomorrow, but he’s not even on Twitter.

It’s often said that the 2008 US housing crisis marked the death of the American Dream, in which widespread homeownership stood as a marker of the prosperity and stability associated with the country’s middle class. But it turns out that the American Dream is alive and well elsewhere in the world.

Social media is where we can meet, greet, and see what other people are doing and saying. But many people experience it more like a form of torture, unfortunately, and use it to hurt themselves. Instead, you can choose to use it wisely, and in so doing, you may construct a better world.

On remote Campbell Island, in the subantarctic waters off New Zealand, stands a tree that keeps the record of global human activity.

If you had the option of saving five lives by pushing one person into an oncoming train, what would you do?

Good morning, America. All your recent talk of gender equality has only shown just how far from woke you really are. Despite best intentions, the current cultural conversation about feminism continues to perpetuate sexism.

The fountain of youth is a forest. Trees cast off years and grant health and cheer, or so transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson claimed in his 1836 essay “Nature.” ”In the woods,” he wrote, “I feel that nothing can befall me [. . .] which nature cannot repair.”

Once upon a time in Long Island City, Queens, there stood a warehouse turned public art gallery called 5Pointz, displaying hundreds of ever-changing paintings. It was visible from a distance, and known the world over. For 20 years, artists and tourists flocked to the graffiti mecca to create and enjoy the outdoor aerosol art show, which helped transform a derelict neighborhood into a desirable place to live.

When considering what humans need to survive, art doesn’t seem high on the list. A hungry person will pick a sandwich over a painting, say. But there was a time when our ancestors’ survival was inextricably linked with their ability to create images. Prehistoric cave art helped make Homo sapiens into the brainy beings we are today.

Philosophers and mystics have long contemplated the disconcerting notion that the fixed self is an illusion. Neuroscientists now think they can prove it or, at least, help us glimpse this truth with some help from psilocybin, the psychoactive property in magic mushrooms.