Few workers face more scrutiny than professional athletes. Every movement is measured, every outcome quantified, and every performance evaluated against objective standards. So when UC Berkeley Haas researcher Tim Sels wondered how America’s deepening political polarization was affecting workers’ performance, he turned to one of the most comprehensive data sets on individual human performance: the...
The artist Leandro Erlich has installed the first phase of Reefline, a submerged installation that aims to regenerate coral and marine biodiversity along South Beach A large installation by the Argentine artist Leandro Erlich, consisting of 22 submerged marine-grade concrete cars on the ocean floor that seem to drift towards nowhere as the current flows through...
Ahead of their presentation at Art Basel Miami Beach, we catch up with creative director, Kiya Tadele Yatreda (ያጥሬዳ) is an Ethiopian art collective led by creative director, Kiya Tadele, known for merging traditional craftsmanship with digital practice. Building handmade sets and costumes, Yatreda reinterprets historical figures, cultural knowledge, and myth through a distinctly Ethiopian...
A review of Patrick McGee, “Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company” (Scribner, 2025). From its early days, one of Apple Computer’s greatest strengths had nothing to do with its technology or design but, rather, with its ability to leverage cultural tropes in influential advertising campaigns. On New Year’s Eve 1983, the...
Bashofu textiles have kept Okinawans cool and comfortable for more than 500 years. New study catalogues the science behind the craft. For as long as humans have been around, we have been using our hands and senses to create beautiful and useful objects from the natural environment around us. While the artisans of old may...
This tactic may steer the public political discussion away from problem solving and instead create a debate about the very liberal democratic basis of society. Election researchers from across Europe have looked at how populist parties profile themselves on Facebook. Their findings are quite clear. “Populist parties much more often use controversial, divisive issues when...
The world feels heavy again. Politics seethes with bitterness. Civil liberties bend under pressure. Wars erupt in places that once seemed far away but now echo through our daily lives. The news scrolls endlessly across our screens, a litany of anxiety and outrage. Even those who try to keep perspective sense a low hum of...
Mesopotamians, the ancient inhabitants of the land between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, are credited for many firsts in human history, including writing, urbanism and the state. Among these inventions, cylinder seals are perhaps the most distinctive but least known. Seals as artifacts Thousands of these tiny objects – often no bigger than 2 inches...
When a life-size skeleton dressed like the Grim Reaper first appeared on a street altar in Tepito, Mexico City, in 2001, many passersby instinctively crossed themselves. The figure was La Santa Muerte – or Holy Death – a female folk saint cloaked in mystery and controversy that had previously been known, if at all, as...
As a teenager in the 1980s, I was shown a BBC drama in school called Threads that depicted the impact of a nuclear strike on a city in northern England. Threads is a brutal vision of a terrifying reality that I imagine haunted many people in the years before the end of the cold war....
