"You know that feeling when you see a little tennis star, she’s trying really hard and she breaks your heart. I don’t think you find that in women’s publishing at the moment, there isn’t a general enthusiasm for people" >> more
Condolence gift bag for Oscar nominees who didn't win includes one-year supply of Altoids and African safari >> more
China's latest fashion icon: the "Handsome Vagabond" >> more
“Broadly speaking, girl groups correlate with economic expansion, boy bands with stagnation" >> more
The pleasures of boredom >> more
Kit Kat flavors worldwide, including Salt-Watermelon and Chestnut >> more
"Real criticism is not about distinguishing good from bad; it is about distinguishing good from great. . . . The curse of our time, in the arts, is mediocrity and ordinariness . . ." >> more
Transcriptions of a sleeptalker >> more
Rejected New York Times slogans: "Always decent; never dull" >> more
Taxing the human body >> more
NBA projects losses of $400 million next year, says David Stern >> more
Job opening: Obama's twitterer >> more
Buy seeds and grow your own Nicotiana Tabacum >> more
Intersex people aren't allowed to serve in the U.S. military >> more
Art idea #21: Pour a glass of water to look at. Brilliant >> more
Five cent shopping bags and behavioral economics >> more
Is this work of art really "uncollectable"? Or just always on sale? >> more
Rebel artist's tragic ending >> more
After five years of deliberate spending, works by women now account for 17 percent of Centre Pompidou's collection >> more
Top corporate and special-interest donors to federal-level politics >> more
In the history of material culture, the Makapansgat pebble represents "the birth of want" >> more
What typeface are you? >> more
History of the ampersand >> more
"Can we ever find 'perfection' or 'certainty' or 'truth'? No! Then let us stop using such words in our formulations.": An argument for eliminating all forms of the verb "to be" >> more
How to guarantee your luggage won't be lost >> more
There are 35,000 stray dogs in Moscow. Some have even learned how to ride the Metro >> more
New book about the Getty: "Chasing Aphrodite: Decline and Fall of the World's Richest Museum" >> more
Snowballs made by wind >> more
In defense of a "general and massive easing-up on widows and orphans" >> more
How to be insulting without being ill-bred, or, the only thing written by Bertrand Russell that I've ever wanted to read >> more
Bravo announces new reality show competition for artists >> more
Roman dialect has word to describe the act of stabbing someone in the butt >> more
Neanderthals wore make-up and were thus "capable of symbolic thinking" >> more
On art projects that are never completed: "It is the “unbuilt” or unfulfilled nature of the future that drives manifestos" >> more
Helvetica in Arabic >> more
State of Illinois sued for serving prison inmates too much soy >> more
Dim sum visual dictionary >> more
Say what you will about Adam Gopnik, this line is sticking: "To trust in luck is to be courageous, and courage, the one essential virtue, on which all others depend, is also the one ambiguous virtue . . ." >> more >> more
"Life Before Death": Walter Schel's photographs of people before and right after they have died >> more
The morality of selling babies >> more
Sensor-studded clothing that records domestic violence >> more
The only writer to graduate from Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters >> more
"I will seriously consider eliminating the penny," Obama said >> more
Walking drunk vs. driving drunk vs. biking drunk >> more
Journalism corrections of the year >> more
Is art blogging really that bad, asks Christopher Knight in the Los Angeles Times >> more
Michael Stipe's capsule line for Maison Martin Margiela >> more
Idi Amin and gallerist Robert Fraser had a sexual liaison? >> more
Italian anthropologists to run DNA tests on Caravaggio's exhumed remains >> more
Terranaut II: A fish-powered bicycle >> more
First time there will be live nudity at the MoMA >> more
Duke University Press publishes two-decade-old doctoral dissertation by S. Ann Dunham, Barack Obama's mother >> more
Switzerland bans minarets >> more
Was just debating this the other day: The fashion trends for which this decade will be remembered >> more
Bush's lawyer in Bush v. Gore leading Prop. 8 legal challenge >> more
Forty-six percent of people who own a fake designer handbag buy the real thing within two years: "People were becoming increasingly attached to the real brand even though they never possessed it at all." >> more
The Paradox of Choice, revisited >> more
Maybe this is why art matters: People are willing to pay a lot for it >> more
Should conservatives reappropriate the term "teabagger"? >> more
Gallery show opens at 1 p.m. today. At sundown, all the art will be set on fire >> more
What's the world's most-stolen artwork? >> more
PETA considered "domestic special-interest terrorist" organization by U.S. government >> more
"Eternal Sunshine": Drug wipes out single, specific memory in mice while keeping others intact >> more
Filler words such as "um" and "like" in different languages >> more
I can't believe I hadn't seen this before. A three-way tie on Jeopardy! >> more >> more
Corduroy skirts are a sin >> more
Coalition of artists files FOIA to reveal which songs were used to interrogate detainees: "Mohammed al Qahtani, the so-called twentieth hijacker, said that whenever he fell asleep, the guards would crank up Christina Aguilera" >> more
The two main types of lists, according to Umberto Eco: "etcetera" and "everything included" >> more
Most of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions come from sheep burps? >> more
While growing up on Catalina Island, D.'s mom used to feed pickles to the wild bison. Now, those bison's descendants are getting contraceptive injections >> more
Two butterflies are born on the space shuttle Atlantis >> more
Has sleepwalking ever been captured on tape? Why researchers know so little about people who kill in their sleep >> more
The BBC's artist reality TV competition premiered this week. I'm scared to watch >> more
Pope urges artists to make works that are beautiful >> more
Is Design Within Reach in trouble? >> more
Yemen will be first country to run out of water >> more
Galileo's fingers discovered in a jar >> more
S. A. Andrée's ill-fated balloon journey to the North Pole >> more
How to choose a pen name >> more
Do assassinations matter? An analysis of all 298 assassination attempts from 1875 to 2004 and their political repercussions >> more
Creating the signage that will warn future generations about toxic waste dump sites: "There will always be someone who studies ancient languages." >> more >> more
Make your own Sriracha hot sauce >> more
The importance of a museum's permanent collection >> more
"Two Month's Salary" >> more
The two humanistic enterprises that most loudly declare their commitment to truth are barely on speaking terms. Why we need a Philosophy of Journalism >> more
Jeanne-Claude, dead at 74 >> more Daul Kim, dead at 20 >> more
Is there such a thing as a publicly owned image? Or are there only not-yet copyrighted images? >> more
President of Ultimate Fighting Championship becomes first head of major sports league to welcome openly gay athletes >> more
Discontinued McDonald's menu items, including corndogs and the Jason Kidd burger >> more
Morehouse College dress code bans men from wearing "clothing usually worn by women" >> more
Is Call of Duty 2 an anti-war game? >> more
TSA bans snowglobes in carry-on luggage >> more
Naming an aesthetic: "Modern Hemingway" or "New Antiquarian" or "Haute Americana"? >> more
An ongoing, eight-decade science experiment, unseen by anyone: "It took eight years for the first drop to fall." >> more
The 15 Fortune 500 companies run by women >> more
Revisiting the death of the American Dream >> more
Instead of a communal water font, machines that dispense single servings of holy water >> more
I ate my first mangosteen last month. I'm drinking bilberry tea right now. Next up: paw paw gelato >> more
The quest to create a new, rational language, absent redundancies and irregularities >> more
Top 200 artists of the 20th century to now, according to an online poll >> more
Paleontologists made stew from the neck of an extinct steppe bison that had been frozen for 36,000 years >> more
Mars Rover is stuck in a pit. "The choice on which way to drive will not be made lightly." >> more
Finally, a decent newspaper in San Francisco? Too bad the San Francisco Panorama is a one-off >> more
Twenty least powerful people in the art world. Rosalind Krauss makes the cut: "We couldn't remember who she is and we were too lazy to Google her." >> more
Claude Levi-Strauss is dead >> more
The weirdest people in the world? Great academic paper topic I can't believe hasn't been covered before >> more
Ron Artest raps about violence against women in Afghanistan, seriously >> more
Anti-rape condom >> more
Meatless Mondays in Baltimore's public schools has drawn ire from something called Pork Magazine >> more
Yale University Press refuses to publish controversial Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons in book about the controversy >> more
Economics experiment demonstrates benefits of backstabbing >> more
Royalties from The Great Gatsby totaled $8,397 in F. Scott Fitzgerald's lifetime >> more
"No Woman No Cry": Does this lyric mean "There is no woman that does not cry" or "Don't cry if you don't have a woman"? A philologist weighs in >> more
Slavoj Zizek lecture on new book, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, interrupted by bomb threat >> more
Editor of WaPo says he "failed to reconcile language with intentions." >> more
Tom Cruise was Christian Bale's inspiration for Patrick Bateman in 'American Psycho' >> more
ACLU considers destroying tapes of board meetings, claiming verbatim recordings are "working papers" not official record >> more
Genocide in Iraq against homosexual men and boys, who are publicly tortured, mutilated and killed >> more
