New research suggests that a misunderstanding between givers and receivers of gifts accounts for the taboo against regifting. Givers should encourage receivers to do as they wish. 

It's perhaps too deterministic to say that your genes determine everything you do. It’s more like the deck of cards that you're dealt at birth. What you do with that […]

What could be better than starting your morning, visiting your online haunts, and being confronted, bleary-eyed, with a picture of a blonde woman in a catsuit having her breast suckled […]

As we’ve noted, there are very few and very restricted reasons to prevent a rational person from harming herself. After all, we’ve come to accept adults drinking, smoking, and mountain-climbing […]

You heard it here first. NO NEW BUILDINGS. The future of architecture hangs in the balance–a balance of energy and environmental constraints that will profoundly alter the way humans interact with their environment. For […]

The Mind/Body Split in American Acting (and culture) On the whole, and with a few notable exceptions, Hollywood expects its great actors to play themselves in every role. We want […]

Over 200 powerful women gathered in New York City last week to discuss the idea of adding more women to corporate boards, an idea that seems to be gaining traction. […]

Susan Stautberg founded the group WomenCorporateDirectors with the aim of putting more women on corporate boards globally.

"My guess is that the Y chromosome of every living man has spent at least one generation in the testis of a warlord," the Oxford geneticist Bryan Sykes once told […]

So of all the sundry commentaries on young Obama as literary man, the one that’s impressed me the most (except, of course,  for my own) is the one by the […]

Men have stronger sexual desires than do women…Women are the more monogamous gender…Homosexuality is an unnatural sexual behavior.Sexual beliefs, like these, are so widespread that we have collectively come to […]

What really goes on in a brain-on-porn? A recent study conducted at the University of Groningen Medical Center came to a surprising conclusion.

As the details of the undercover operation to infiltrate AQAP continue to be made public the picture of what happened is starting clear.  As I wrote yesterday, it appears that […]

Those who hope and/or argue that economic interdependence between the U.S. and China will help to prevent a war between them are often told to recall Norman Angell’s 1910 book, […]

I'm always fascinated by pop culture products that become cultural catalysts. More specifically, I'm particularly interested in foreign exports that are so interesting, exciting, addictive or just plain weird that […]

The words we pay the least attention to in conversations--connectors like 'the', 'this', 'that', 'and', etc.--are highly reflective of our sexual desire and our relative place in society. 

By logging hyper-specific personal information, about what booths you have visited at a trade show, for example, businesses will increasingly trade you their data for your data. 

Despite America's classless and meritocratic self-image, the divide between elite and supposedly plebeian culture is growing. What is driving the nation's deepening divide? 

Have you ever had a mystical experience?

On Wednesday, President Obama became the first sitting president to support marriage equality for gays and lesbians. The president’s support does nothing to alter the moral case for marriage equality. […]