Netflix faces calls for a boycott after it removed its “Palestinian Stories” collection this October. This includes approximately 24 films. Netflix cited the expiration of three-year licences as the reason for pulling the films from the collection. Nonetheless, some viewers were outraged and almost 12,000 people signed a CodePink petition calling on Netflix to reinstate the films. The Israeli television series Fauda, produced […] … learn more→

What’s good for your heart is good for your brain. Just as physical activity helps keep our bodies fit and strong as we age, it also helps maintain our cognitive function – and is even linked with lower dementia risk. Yet beyond the longer term cognitive benefits of physical activity, exercise also seems to give a […] … learn more→

Tracey, a high school teacher in the Philadelphia School District, remembers the hurtful comments she heard from parents when she started her career over a decade ago as a young Black teacher in what was then a predominantly white area of southwest Philly. “I can recall white parents making comments saying, ‘Oh, this young Black teacher who […] … learn more→

A cultural war has begun. Continuous, open or hidden, explicit or diverted, it concerns the destiny of all humanity. It concerns knowledge about energy, and more particularly the untruths spread by international “petropowers”. This is evidenced by the insolent success in bookstores of climate-sceptic works which explicitly fuel doubt . The problem? These “petro-knowledges” are delaying collective […] … learn more→

Daron Acemoglu , Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson receive the 2024 Nobel Prize in Economics. Their merit? Having contributed to economics in terms of institutions and development. The winners argue that, with the emergence of artificial intelligence, we are facing a social crossroads and propose a way to address it. The ideas of the winners These economists advocate the […] … learn more→

When she passed her PhD viva, literature researcher Ally Louks posted a picture of herself and her thesis on X (formerly Twitter) in November 2024 (see post here). The photo shared her thesis title: “Olfactory Ethics: The politics of smell in modern and contemporary prose”. The post garnered over 11,000 responses, some deeply negative. Louks […] … learn more→

Most of us have heard the phrase “correlation does not equal causation”. But understanding how scientists move beyond identifying correlations to establish causation remains a mystery to many. Finding out what causes a particular outcome is often the primary goal of scientific research, especially in studies relating to our health. We want to know if […] … learn more→

Last week, Ally Louks (now Dr. Louks), an academic at the University of Cambridge, posted a picture of herself on the social media site X with her fresh PhD thesis titled “Olfactory Ethics: The politics of smell in modern and contemporary prose”. The post received a surprising amount of attention – it has been viewed more than […] … learn more→

Online shopping often involves endless options and fleeting discounts. A single search for running shoes can yield hundreds of results across multiple platforms, each promising the “best deal.” The holiday season brings excitement, but it also brings a blend of decision fatigue and logistical nightmares. What if there were a tool capable of hunting for […] … learn more→

Ever since the American Dialect Society selected a Word of the Year at its conference in 1990, over half a dozen English dictionaries have anointed an annual word or phrase that’s meant to encapsulate the zeitgeist of the prior year. In 2003, the publisher of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary began bestowing a crown. On Dec. 9, 2024, it selected […] … learn more→