Ever get home from a long day in the office and realize, a little too late, that you sort of stink? Thankfully, scientists are now applying artificial intelligence to sniff out BO, and turn this into a problem into a thing of the luddite past.
Polyamory is no longer unusual. In areas of Brooklyn dominated by corporate-sponsored graffiti and homogenous warehouses-turned-craft-cocktail-bars, the practice of dating multiple lovers has developed into a social scene. There are regular sex parties, some listed on kink websites so attendees can add them to their Google calendars well in advance, others advertised only by word of mouth. And there are events where polyamorists get together and no one has sex: Film screenings, picnics, cocktail parties, and other PG-friendly rendezvous.
France’s violent protests in response to President Macron’s proposed fuel tax are a real-world manifestation of a problem economists have long grappled with: it’s not easy to create environmental policies that don’t exacerbate inequality.
Harvard University, never exactly a bastion of fairness and equality, has finally gone too far. The university has started penalizing membership in fraternities, sororities, and final clubs—the single-sex organizations that mimic many characteristics of Greek life but exist only on Harvard’s campus—and students will not stand for it. Two fraternities, two sororities, and three anonymous college students filed a lawsuit last week claiming that the university’s rejection of single-sex social organizations is itself a form of sex discrimination. (Full disclosure: I graduated from Harvard 2011 and, though I didn’t join a final club or sorority, I did attend some of their parties.)
The United States is in the midst of an opioid crisis. Every day, over 100 people die from opioid overdoses, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But what if we could know about overdoses before they happen?
There’s hope, at the beginning, that all the build up and stage-setting will eventually deliver a satisfying moment. But after a seemingly endless string of bland commentary, the Dec. 8 Saturday Night Live cold open on the Mueller investigation leaves you nonplussed. Much like the Mueller investigation itself.
The rumors around John Kelly, the US president’s chief of staff, have finally been confirmed: The former Marine general will leave his current job by the end of the year. President Donald Trump announced the news to reporters on the White House lawn on Saturday afternoon (Dec. 8). Even the timing of the announcement was an indication of the sour relationship between Trump and Kelly; the chief of staff had planned to tell his staff on Monday, according to the New York Times (paywall), but Trump beat him to it.
Air quality in India is so poor that that 1.2 million deaths in the country last year can be attributed to air pollution.
Talking about how many hours you work is not impressive. Far from being an indication of industrious achievements or alpha status, it should be seen as a professionally embarrassing sign that, quite frankly, you have nothing else to boast about.
The Russian city of Kaliningrad is in the midst of a heated debate. Paint has been thrown, protests and counter-protests have been staged, and a vice-admiral has issued a stern warning to his sailors to take his side in the conflict—which is about the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant.
Imagine there’s a boss who truly despises vegans. He eats red meat every day, wants all his employees to eat steaks, and refuses to hire any vegan employees. (Someone, perhaps, a bit like the former Waitrose magazine editor, who was successfully pressured to resign after making an offensive “joke” about force-feeding vegans red meat.) Such a person would clearly be a jerk, but would they be discriminatory?
To mark the passage of time, you could track the height of the sun in the sky or the passing of the seasons. Or, you could measure the vibrations of an atom.
Just over 100 ago, New York newspapers announced the impending arrival of a visiting French philosopher, and the city buzzed. When Henri Bergson delivered his February 1913 series of lectures at Columbia University, New Yorkers were so eager to hear him speak—though he delivered his philosophical musings in French—that they descended on the campus in the thousands. In the process, his fans caused the very first traffic jam on Broadway.
Some people are apparently totally cool with living in an absurd world. Presumably, these folks don’t experience existence as futile or see enthusiasm as foolish.
What makes a rocket safe? Are you sure—really, really sure? To answer this question to NASA’s exacting standards, you’ll need not just a grasp of engineering, but an understanding of epistemology (the philosophical theory of knowledge) and metaphysics (the branch of philosophy that questions the nature of reality). To truly answer this question, you’ll need to be a philosopher… of safety engineering.
Philosophers around the world: rejoice, for the entire world shall pay homage to the great subject this week.
Anyone who’s wanted to dismiss Republican politics as straightforwardly mean now has some data to back them up. A psychology paper published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences in September found that Republicans surveyed had a small but statistically significant higher level of psychopathic traits than Democrats.
Analysis of the remains of 49 people has revealed that there were at least three major immigration waves from North to South America, instead of just one, as scientists previously believed.
It’s been six years since Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana, and scientists keep on unearthing more data on the effects of the drug.
Almost 50 years since US president Richard Nixon declared psychedelic mushrooms illegal and “of no medical use,” mounting scientific evidence suggests he was wrong. A small, controversial company is now leading the effort to turn magic mushrooms into a pharmaceutical product, and is stirring up intense criticism from psychedelic experts who believe it’s trying to dominate the market.
There wasn’t an English word for the color “orange” until 200 years after the citrus fruit of the same name arrived in Europe. Before then, the color was called by the two other colors that, when mixed, make orange: “yellow-red.”
The entire eastern half of the United States will be buffeted by storms today (Nov. 6), in what could be a gift from the weather gods to Republicans. Research has found that bad weather correlates with lower voter turnout, which tends to hurt Democratic candidates worse than Republicans.
To understand religious warfare, you could study the hundreds of historical or ongoing world conflicts that center on religion. Or you could program an AI to mimic human psychology and generate artificial societies, and then run it millions of times under different variables.
The philosopher Martha Nussbaum, whose work includes analyses of anger and disgust, has been awarded the 2018 Berggruen Prize for philosophy and culture. This marks the second year in a row that the prize, which awards $1 million in recognition of thinkers whose ideas “have the potential to shape a better human future” has been awarded to a woman. The prize has only existed for three years.
