Ephrat Livni

It’s official. Neil Gorsuch has been sworn in to the US Supreme Court in two ceremonies, one private and one public.

The webbed world we live in now would have seemed like science fiction not long ago. Thriller writer Daniel Suarez believes that coming changes will be much more dramatic. He predicts that by 2045 bespoke babies—plus pets, plants, bacteria, and more—will be all the rage.

Western culture tends to look down on daydreamers—as if it’s a childish habit that we’re supposed to outgrow, along with make-believe games and imaginary friends. But none other than Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychology, thought that most adults daydream too little. Daydreaming, he theorized, is important for creative thinking. When we indulge in fantasies about our hopes for the future, we prepare ourselves to deal with reality.

US president Donald Trump isn’t a lawyer, but he certainly navigates the law like a boss. Trump’s approach is counterintuitive, and not for the poor or faint of heart. But it’s also effective: By embracing precisely the kind of trouble that others shirk, he manages to get away with saying and doing far more questionable stuff than your average Joe—or president.

Clerking for a judge is one way that law students and lawyers get training. It’s an opportunity to see legal practice in action and to deal with some of its biggest challenges. Clerks research legal issues and help draft opinions for judges in the hopes of someday reaching the same lofty heights as their bosses.

You have a sense of humor, no doubt. But do you find life funny, really?

In Japanese, there are three words for “heart”: shinzou, which refers to the physical organ, ha-to, which is the Anglicized word for a love heart, and kokoro, which means… well, that’s more difficult to explain.

After the apocalypse, assuming anyone survives, people won’t be worried about reading immediately. But eventually they’ll want to dive back into humanity’s history of literary works—for distraction, perhaps, or in an effort to understand why it all went to hell. One new library is built to last any sort of disaster to provide just this service to survivors. It’s taking deposits now.

People of a certain age learned funny rules about writing in English. Like don’t use like. And never start a sentence with because, and, or but. Because grammar.

In English, calling someone a bird brain is the equivalent to labeling them a dumbbell. Bird brains are small and synonymous with stupidity, although avians are clever enough to make tools, have memories, and even commit crime.

Speaking freely isn’t easy and it isn’t always wise, particularly at work. Theoretically, people want to communicate. But in reality, exchanging our thoughts can feel dangerous—sometimes with good reason.

The Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act of 2017—aka the HONEST Act—is ostensibly intended to make the science that the Environmental Protection Agency relies on more transparent. But implementing the measure, passed by the US House of Representatives on March 29, could cost a small fortune and the budget is tiny.

The man considered the world’s foremost marijuana researcher began studying cannabis scientifically in the 1960s. He was not a hippie.

Black holes are invisible; they are places in space where gravity is so strong that nothing emerges from beyond. Not even light.

Unless you’re a golfer, you probably don’t think about golf balls. But a new US lawsuit about these little dimpled spheres has an economics lesson for all shoppers, showing why consumers have cause for concern when companies use court for sport.

Police body cameras are widely seen as a way to improve law enforcement’s transparency with the public. But when mixed with police use of facial-recognition tools, the prospect of continual surveillance comes with big risks to privacy.

The poet Langston Hughes said that humor is laughing at what you haven’t got when you ought to have it. That certainly seems to be the spirit behind the advertisements of Royal Jordanian.

Communication can be a tricky business, whether it’s your profession or you’re just exchanging words and ideas with your fellow humans. A true story about science fiction that was accidentally reported as fact a century ago is proof positive.

“We’re now like David Foster Wallace’s fish. We’re surrounded by the rule of law, it’s in the fabric of our lives,” said US Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch at his Senate confirmation hearings today (March 21).

US president Donald Trump will soon sign a bill meant to allow states to condition unemployment benefits on drug testing. Legal challenges to that law might eventually reach the Supreme Court. That would pit Trump’s nominee for the bench, Neil Gorsuch, against the president, if senators approve him on April 3.

Yesterday the US Senate began confirmation hearings for Neil Gorsuch, president Donald Trump’s nominee for the vacant spot on the Supreme Court. Over three days senators will question him about his professional experience, and he will, presumably, illuminate his judicial philosophy.

US attorney general Jeff Sessions knows that the country is in the throes of an opioid epidemic. Sessions also knows that many state legislators—and scientists—believe legal marijuana could help fix it. He just really, really hates that idea.

Land animals rarely have that glow known as fluorescence. But now scientists have found a frog with this power, the first such amphibian known to humanity.

American presidents and poets have long expressed their love of beer. Abraham Lincoln said he firmly believed the people could be depended upon in any national crisis, as long as they were given “the facts and beer.” Edgar Allen Poe wrote an ode to the stuff, and Charles Bukowski called brew his “continuous lover.”