Meet the Linda Lindas, the Tween Punk Band Who Called Out Racism & Misogyny and Scored a Record Deal
“Sticks and stones may break my bones,” we chanted as kids, but “words will never hurt me.” The saying seems to both invite physical violence and...
Category: Culture
What Makes the Art of Bonsai So Expensive?: $1 Million for a Bonsai Tree, and $32,000 for Bonsai Scissors
During the past year’s stretches of time at home, quite a few of us have attempted to introduce more plant life into our surroundings. By some...
De-Mystifying Mindfulness: A Free Online Course by Leiden University
From Chris Goto-Jones–now Dean of Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Victoria–comes a free course which was named ‘one of the best online courses...
The Creation & Restoration of Notre-Dame Cathedral, Animated
With The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Victor Hugo intended less to tell a story than to mount a defense of Gothic architecture, which in the early 19th...
Real D-Day Landing Footage, Enhanced & Colorized with Artificial Intelligence (June 6, 1944)
Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan drew great acclaim for its harrowing depiction of “D-Day,” the 1944 Allied landing operation that proved a decisive blow against Nazi Germany. More...
Who Decides What Words Get Into the Dictionary?
DICTIONARY, n. A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. — Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary Once upon...
Creative Thinking: A Free Online Course from Imperial College London
From Peter Childs (Head of the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial College London) comes a free course that explores creative thinking techniques, and how...
How the Survivors of Pompeii Escaped Mount Vesuvius’ Deadly Eruption: A TED-Ed Animation Tells the Story
We tend to imagine Pompeii as a city frozen in time by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, inhabitants and all, but most Pompeiians actually survived the disaster....
Watch 1000 Musicians Play the Foo Fighters’ “Learn to Fly,” Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” and David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel”
In the 1980s, avant-garde composer, guitarist Glenn Branca began writing symphonies for electric guitars — dozens of them, all playing at once, creating unprecedented psychoacoustic effects...
Learn to Play Senet, the 5,000-Year Old Ancient Egyptian Game Beloved by Queens & Pharaohs
Senet gaming board inscribed for Amenhotep III with separate sliding drawer, via Wikimedia Commons Games don’t just pass the time, they enact battles of wits, proxy...
