Sometime in the early 1930s, Henri Matisse hired a photographer to document his paintings at different stages of development. These photographs became signposts along the road toward what Matisse wanted […]

In a country where sports spending is all but nonexistent, two teams look to local businesses -- specifically, a brothel and a funeral parlor -- for funding.

The BBC is launching three pay-TV channels in the country, including CBeebies, which airs Teletubbies and other preschool programs.

In the wake of the awful events in Newtown, a "national conversation" seems to have started about both easy access to guns and the ways we deal (or don't deal) […]

As neuroscience, cognitive science, computer programming, and artificial intelligence progress, we’re understanding better and better how we learn. 

How can the government change the framework of choices that particular people are faced with so that their own small errors in risk perception don’t expose the whole of society?  

How much would you pay to prevent the death of a child, or anyone else, from gun violence?

While guns don’t kill people, they certainly do make killing easier.

Tea growers have won legal protection for the name, ensuring that, as with certain specially-produced wines and spirits, theirs is the only tea that gets to be called Darjeeling.

Reporters Without Borders has launched a site that "publishes content that has been censored or banned or has led to reprisals against its creator."

The town of Lens, in northern France, put out a massive effort to convince the Louvre to come. In addition to its art, it's bringing 750 jobs to the area.

As I mentioned earlier, I took part in a discussion panel at Skepticon V last month, How Should Rationalists Approach Relationships and Marriage? The video of that panel is now […]

I hate having to write posts like this, but it's too huge a story to ignore. Less than two weeks before Christmas, America is again reeling from a mass killing […]

Despite the convictions we hold of our own moral correctness, we are easily brought under the influence of group morals, i.e. our behavior is motivated by our desire to be faithful to a group.

Oliver Sacks, professor of neuroscience at NYU, challenges fellow neuroscientists who have capitalized on near-death and out-of-body experiences to justify their belief in God and heaven. 

Researchers at Northwestern University are testing a new chemical formula that relieves the symptoms of depression within hours. The drug works similarly to Ketamine, the animal sedative. 

Children begin to show empathy and charity before they understand what those words mean, says pediatrician Perri Klass. And, she says, parents can help cultivate these prosocial attitudes.

In the developed world, the fight against infectious disease has largely been won. Anti-aging advocates say medical research should now concentrate on slowing the process of aging. 

Nathan Harden writes with his characteristic techno-confidence that most higher education will be online soon enough.  That means that most non-elite private colleges and many mediocre public institutions will soon […]