There’s A Better Way To Get Smarter Than Brain-Training Games
Most of the rapid cognitive enhancers currently being peddled are not very effective. Brain-training games like Lumosity and Posit Science (Brain HQ) won’t boost your IQ, but a host of strategies can improve your cognitive abilities one piece at a time.

My Restaurant Was My Life For 20 Years. Does The World Need It Anymore?
Forced to shutter Prune, Gabrielle Hamilton has been revisiting her original dreams for it — and wondering if there will still be a place for it in the New York of the future.

The Pentagon’s Push To Program Soldiers’ Brains
The military wants future super-soldiers to control robots with their thoughts. The mission is to make human beings something other than what we are, with powers beyond the ones we’re born with and beyond the ones we can organically attain.

Tim Westergren, Digital Radio Pioneer, Returns To Break The Music Industrial Complex
Disillusioned after leaving Pandora, Tim Westergren set out to create a better kind of streaming platform. His new Sessions app helps musicians get paid. Can he save struggling artists while redeeming himself?

What Happens When Immigrant-Rights Advocates Reach A Breaking Point?
There has arguably never been a worse time to be an asylum seeker in the United States. This is due, in part, to an administration that has taken a xenophobic approach to immigration, with an openly hostile stance toward asylum seekers and their advocates.

An Olympic Hockey Hero, A Violent Crime And The Specter Of Brain Trauma
Forty years ago, Mark Pavelich played a crucial role in the U.S. hockey team’s triumph over the Russians. He is unquestionably the least understood of the ’80 Olympic heroes, and someone who may have been betrayed by the very sport he loved. Was there a steep cost for his lifetime on the ice?

How Big Oil And Big Soda Kept A Global Environmental Calamity A Secret For Decades
With new legislation, Sen. Tom Udall is attempting to marshal Washington into a confrontation with the plastics industry, and to force companies that profit from plastics to take accountability for the waste they create. Big Plastic isn’t a single entity. It’s more like a corporate supergroup: Big Oil meets Big Soda.

To The Driver Who Hit Me And Ran
I was biking home when you barreled into me with your car and left me to die. And I would have died if Tim Gillach, a cyclist and insurance salesman from Colorado’s Front Range, hadn’t caught a fleeting glimpse of my face as he drove past.

The Homeownership Obsession
There are two different tales we tell ourselves about houses. The primary story is about bright futures, long lives, children, grandchildren, and hard-earned success. The second story, the darker story, is about the horror of being trapped.

“Double Tap”, A Short, Satirical, Fast-Paced Comedy & Horror Film
A screen-obsessed teen ignores an Instagram meme chain and unleashes a Dickless Troll. Big mistake. “Double Tap” is a short, satirical, and fast-paced comedy/horror from Eros Vlahos.

The New Mind Control
The internet has spawned subtle forms of influence that can flip elections and manipulate everything we say, think and do. Most of the vacuous thoughts and intense feelings our teenagers experience from morning till night are carefully orchestrated by highly skilled marketing professionals working in our fashion and entertainment industries.

“Missed Call”, How Do You Reconnect?
How do you reconnect with a father who’s been gone for most of your life… what do you say, what do you write? ‘Missed Call’ explores the relationship between the filmmaker and her teenage son as they work out how to reconnect with his father who’s been absent for a decade. A BAFTA Winning Documentary.

Life Under The Algorithm
Increase your output, get paid more. Wages go up with productivity. Until, it turns out, they don’t anymore. The unwinding of this agreement in recent decades, such that workers must continue to produce more without expecting it to show up in their pay stubs, has now been the subject of a good deal of discussion and debate.

How I Rewired My Brain To Become Fluent In Math
Having a basic, deep-seated fluency in math and science—not just an “understanding,” is critical. The “fluency” part of me that loved literature and language was also the same part of me that ultimately fell in love with math and science—and transformed and enriched my life.

How Utah Keeps The American Dream Alive
Economic mobility to rival Denmark’s, but without big government. Can the rest of the U.S. emulate Utah’s success? We could offer more, and better, help to people who need it. Why not look for more promising scripts than the ones played out across the U.S. today?

First-Born Children Really Are Treated Differently by Mom
While moms tried to apply the same parenting rationale to both their kids, it didn’t really work out in application. Mothers engaged in 15 percent more play with older children, and younger siblings received roughly four percent more praise and 9 percent more physical affection.

Coming Out Of The Shadows: What It Means To Be French And Chinese
France is home to large Vietnamese and Cambodian communities who arrived in the country in great numbers following the wars in the former French colonies in the 1970s. People of Chinese descent have long faced prejudice and violence in France. But today a new generation is staking out its rightful place in society.

TikTok Told Moderators: Suppress Posts By The “Ugly” And Poor
Internal documents show moderators were also told to censor political speech in TikTok livestreams, punishing those who harmed “national honor” or broadcast streams about “state organs such as police” with bans from the platform.

What Happens When Bitcoin Miners Take Over Your Town
Miners now pouring into Eastern Washington are building sites with tens of thousands of servers and electrical loads of as much as 30 megawatts, or enough to power a neighborhood of 13,000 homes. And in the arms race that cryptocurrency mining has become, even these operations will soon be considered small-scale.

Why Perfect Grades Don’t Matter
Research shows that chasing after perfect grades discourages creativity and reduces academic risk-taking. The constant quest for perfect grades can lead to high stress and mental health problems. Here’s why good grades don’t always translate into success in life.

The My Generation: An Oral History Of Myspace Music
At Myspace’s height, the website changed the way artists and fans found each other and how record labels and buzz-seeking blogs found fresh meat. Artists like Panic! At The Disco, Arctic Monkeys, Soulja Boy, Lily Allen, and Colbie Caillat would become pop stars in part because of their presence on the site.