Olivia Goldhill

The French now have the “right to be forgotten” worldwide.

Russia invited a bunch of international separatist groups, including dissidents from Ireland, Spain, Italy, the US, and Ukraine, to discuss “the right to self-determination” to a Moscow conference—despite “separatism” being a crime in Russia.

Turkey announced that it has spent $7.6 billion caring for the 2.2 million Syrian refugees living within its borders. It’s a staggering figure amid a crisis that is sure to yield many more of them. But it’s the more modest figures, showing humanitarian aid donated, that indicate how desperate the situation could become.

Edward Snowden has strongly defended citizens’ rights to encrypt their messages, and has taught journalists how to use encryption to protect themselves from spying programs.

While you may not remember life as a toddler, you most likely believe that your selfhood then—your essential being—was intrinsically the same as it is today.

Imagine a world where your television understands your viewing tastes better than you do. Though you might tell yourself you’re enjoying the German arthouse film on the screen, your TV wouldn’t be fooled. Able to monitor and analyze facial movements, it would register your boredom and recommend something it knows you enjoy.

A snake in a Missouri nature center has twice given birth in the last two years—despite having no contact with a male snake in the last eight years, according to her keepers. The yellow-bellied water snake’s virginal feat marks the first example of asexual reproduction in her species.

On Friday, Sep. 18, President Barack Obama further advanced his commitment to LGBT rights by nominating the first openly gay civilian secretary to lead the US military.

This year’s Ig Nobel prize recipients, announced yesterday (Sept. 17), don’t sound like the most serious-minded scientists.  The prizes—awarded to silly and improbable scientific research—were given to scientists who:

Ashley Madison’s hack gave insight to a world where millions of men swapped messages with female-impersonator bots. But though more men than women use online dating overall, it seems that some major dating websites successfully subvert this trend.

Most Western employees are used to spending more time with their colleagues than with their family. In the US, employees spend an average 47 hours per week at the office in a desperate bid to impress the boss and prove their work ethic before heading home, exhausted.

Most hobbyists are content with ballroom dancing or a bit of life drawing. But Copenhagen Suborbitals, a group of 50 amateur space enthusiasts in Denmark, spend their spare time working on rocket launches. Their lofty goal is to send a man into space.

Since a self-described socialist was elected to lead the UK’s main opposition party, much has been made of his radical views.

In an emotional interview with TV host Stephen Colbert, US vice president Joe Biden mentioned that he’d found solace in the writing of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. He said that his wife, Jill Biden, had taped a Kierkegaard quote to the mirror, which read “Faith sees best in the dark.”

Switzerland’s national anthem is not the most popular tune. The Swiss Psalm was first written in 1841, has been described as a cross between a hymn and a weather forecast, and has religious lyrics seen as far too pious for the increasingly secular country. (“When the Alps glow bright with splendor / pray to God, to Him surrender,” for instance.)

Tweaking human embryo DNA is no longer a theoretical prospect. Rapid advances in “genome editing” technology mean that scientists can now efficiently and precisely modify DNA.

A United Nations inquiry found that North Korea’s human rights abuses include murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, and rape, while Amnesty International says that the country is “in a category of its own when it comes to human rights violations”.

The UK’s major opposition party has radically shifted the political spectrum by electing self-described socialist politician Jeremy Corbyn to lead the party.

Child psychopaths make compelling horror movie villains, but the disturbing mental disorder is more than a fictional trope.

Sweaty trips on overstuffed trains and buses, rush-hour traffic jams… for many workers, the commute can be the most stressful part of a working day.

Award-winning author David Mitchell is writing a new short story, and you can read his work-in-progress on Twitter.

Reading books and writing reports are forms of punishment familiar to many high school students.

Don’t be surprised by political leaders’ indecision over how to help refugees amid the growing crisis in Europe. Even philosophers can’t offer an unanimous answer on the moral response.

Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, and now Sarah Palin, are all arguing in English over the Spanish language.