There’s a strange problem facing anyone trying to write fiction today: reality keeps getting there first. Wars unfold live on our phones. Political figures feel less like leaders and more like characters written for maximum attention. Events that would have once been dismissed as too on-the-nose or implausible now pass as ordinary headlines. It’s not...
Scientists at the University of Melbourne have uncovered for the first time how Australia’s iconic Twelve Apostles were formed, finding tectonic plate movements over millions of years lifted and tilted the giant structures out of the sea. Until now, the evolution of the Twelve Apostles had not been well known. University of Melbourne lead researcher Associate Professor Stephen Gallagher from the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences said the tectonic event helped shape the Apostles...
Americans spend a remarkable amount of time shopping – more than on education, volunteering or even talking on the phone. But the way they shop is shifting dramatically, as major platforms and retailers are racing to automate commercial decision-making. Artificial intelligence agents can already search for products, recommend options and even complete purchases on a...
With the launch of NASA’s Artemis II mission on April 1, 2026, human beings have finally returned to the Moon for the first time in 50 years – since the age of Apollo. When Apollo 11 first landed on the lunar surface, the astronauts portrayed their accomplishment as the realization of a science fictional dream....
Dr. Clare McAndrew reflects on insights from the Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report and the shifts that have shaped the trade in recent years The Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report is marking its 10th anniversary in 2026. Researched and written by Dr. Clare McAndrew, the founder of Arts Economics, the report analyzes the...
“¡Ándale! ¡Ándale! ¡Arriba! ¡Arriba!” Meaning “hurry up, let’s go,” the trademark slogan of Speedy Gonzales was, for generations of children, the first Spanish words they learned. But by the 1980s, ABC had pulled his cartoons due to concerns that his dress, accent and characters like his cousin, Slowpoke Rodriguez, were insensitive toward Mexicans and Mexican...
Sticking to the same meals and eating a consistent number of calories each day may help people lose more weight, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. The study, published in the journal Health Psychology, found that adults who followed more routine eating patterns, such as repeating the same meals and keeping calorie intake...
Fear of corruption allegations drove Samuel Pepys to censor official correspondence connecting the Royal Navy, slave trading companies and his own slaves, new research shows. ‘your meriting well of the thing is the only present that shall ever operate with me’- (Samuel Pepys to John Howe, 1675) That Samuel Pepys owned at least two enslaved...
At Lyric Opera of Chicago, El último sueño de Frida y Diego unfolds not as a linear narrative, but as a sequence of dreams, vivid, surreal, emotionally charged visions that blur the boundaries between life and death, memory and myth. And like any good dream, it lingers. From the moment the curtain rises, the audience...
Wars are rarely lost first on the battlefield. They are lost in leaders’ minds − when leaders misread what they and their adversaries can do, when their confidence substitutes for comprehension, and when the last war is mistaken for the next one. The Trump administration’s miscalculation of Iran is not an anomaly. It is the...
