Orion Jones

Ever the lightening rod for public controversy, the opening of a Barbie Dream House in the center of Berlin provided occasion for protest and reflection on sexism and the state of capitalism. 

For the past five years, the Catholic presence has been expanding dramatically on the Internet, through a new generation of bloggers who are happy to lobby for the Pope and Christian values.

Globalization has resulted in a call for a global ethics, one in which all the people of the world are considered part of the human family. Unfortunately, empathy does not function on such a large scale.

A partnership between Google and NASA has resulted in the purchase of a quantum computer which both organizations expect to aid in the development of artificial intelligence, specifically machine learning.

Highly abstract thinking represents a cultural adaptation to the complexity of modern technological society, but the complexity of contemporary life is not evenly distributed. 

People who live one standard deviation above the green space mean experience a decrease in mental distress that is about one-third as large as the difference between being single and being married.

A team of scientists from Oxford University have shown that zapping the brain with electrical impulses improves its ability to complete mathematical problems in the short and long term.

Computer scientists and artificial intelligence experts say that a project to create digital roundworms represents an essential stepping stone toward the fusion of life and non-life.

While only three percent of the world’s surface is covered by urban landscapes, more than half of the human population lives in city environments. That’s changing human culture as well as human biology.

Pediatricians are encouraging children to play more video games, as long as those games run on consuls that depend on body movement, such as Xbox-Kinect and Wii, to move the game forward.

Biologists at Princeton and Johns Hopkins universities have created an artificial human ear—using a three-dimensional printer, no less—that detects sound better than natural human ears.

Without a stable set of fulfilling social relationships, psychologists say we are given to mainlining sugar and fat to stimulate pleasure centers in the brain. Practicing random acts of kindness is one remedy.

While mainland Chinese companies already export inexpensive goods like seat belts, wipers and radios, their native engineers are young and lack the knowledge necessary to develop cars year in and year out.

Every minute costs two rubles, which means an hour costs 120 rubles ($3.80). For their money patrons get coffee, tea, toast, biscuits, and as much as they want.

Estimates suggest that nearly a quarter of the world’s youth, aged 15 to 24, are out of work. While some do not seek work for cultural reasons, most find their skills are mismatched to the economy.

Even securing the most basic humanitarian rights for Syrian refugees would require committing tens of thousands of ground troops and escalating the conflict to global levels, say security experts.

Marriage has become a temporary link-up of working people who choose to spend some free time together. The model is not well-adapted to down times, and both parents and children lose out.

With the cultural theories of the ’90s in decline, the humanities have begun picking up on neuroscience as the newest way of understanding how we relate to the world. But will it be good for art?

A number of new neuroscience projects, combined with an important theory about how the mind works from infancy, may facilitate large advances in artificial intelligence in the years ahead.

The human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor. When logic puzzles are presented in the context of stories, far more people recognize their essential elements than without context.

We all want to help our friends and loved ones but sociologists have found that helping too much—substituting our efforts for the efforts of those we’re trying to help—tends to blunt their chance of success.

When people participate in market transactions, their moral standards fall substantially, supporting behavior they claim to oppose, such as child labor or meat production involving cruelty to animals.

The American Cardiovascular Association, the nation’s largest heart health organization, recently told Americans that owning a dog will likely decrease their risk of contracting heart disease. 

Rather than having a password to access your numerous online accounts and a key for your house and car, your heartbeat may one day allow you to enter all these locations.

Producing antibodies in yeast cultures rather than mammalian cells takes a fraction of the time and may substantially reduce production costs, resulting in cheaper therapies for patients. 

Psychologists say a new mental state is emerging in which people find unusual amounts of pleasure in activities that are otherwise boring, such as folding towels and running hair dryers. 

The FDA admits that restricting the sale of caffeinated products would be difficult to enforce and would likely provoke an emotional reaction from people who love their caffeine the way the NRA loves guns.

Most business organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have been dominated by large publicly traded corporations in recent decades. That dominance is now being challenged.

While the move is clearly meant to attract investment, mostly from Chinese investors with recently acquired fortunes, the rights a country supplies its citizens has not traditionally been for sale. 

As the stock market continues to rise and rise, what are we to make of a booming Wall Street when many other economic sectors are still suffering the letdown of the financial crash?