Beef is one of America’s most beloved foods. In fact, today’s average American eats three hamburgers per week. American diets have long revolved around beef. On an 1861 trip to the United States, the English novelist Anthony Trollope marveled that Americans consumed twice as much beef as Englishmen. Through war, industry, development and settlement, America’s...
Is blood thicker than water? Should family always come first? These clichés about the importance of family abound, despite the recognition that familial relations are oftentimes hard, if not downright dysfunctional. But over the past few years, a discussion has emerged about a somewhat taboo move: cutting ties altogether with family members deemed “toxic.” Called...
When X (formerly Twitter) changed its verification system in 2022, many foresaw its potential to impact the spread of political opinions on the platform. In a modeling study, researchers show that having verified users whose posts are prioritized by the platform’s algorithms can result in increased polarization and trigger the formation of echo chambers. Because...
I teach a course on New England witchcraft trials, and students always arrive with varying degrees of knowledge of what happened in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Nineteen people accused of witchcraft were executed by hanging, another was pressed to death and at least 150 were imprisoned in conditions that caused the death of at least...
The sudden emergence of witch trials in early modern Europe may have been fueled by one of humanity’s most significant intellectual milestones: the invention of the printing press in 1450. A recent study in Theory and Society shows that the printing of witch-hunting manuals, particularly the Malleus maleficarum in 1487, played a crucial role in spreading persecution across Europe. The study...
In the 1960s, the Egyptian government decided to build the Aswan High Dam. To study and salvage areas threatened by flooding by the Nile, scholars from twenty-six countries participated in a UNESCO-led initiative to save cultural heritage. A Polish team, led by Prof. Kazimierz Michałowski from the University of Warsaw, chose as their research site...
Children of immigrants to the United States typically incorporate themselves into US economic and cultural life, and this pattern of assimilation has not markedly changed in over a century. Today, one in seven US residents was born abroad, rates similar to those seen in the late nineteenth century. As immigrants’ countries of origin have shifted...
Seven years after actor Alyssa Milano’s tweet launched the #MeToo movement into the global consciousness, attitudes towards sexual harassment and assault have shifted in many countries. A new study shows that the movement’s impact doesn’t stop there. INSEAD professors Frédéric Godart and David Dubois, alongside Clément Bellet of Erasmus University Rotterdam, found that #MeToo triggered far-reaching changes in consumer behaviour....
Arms raised high. Banners denouncing the war in Gaza. Crowds united in song and wrapped in keffiyehs, the black-and-white checkered scarves that have become a badge of Palestinian identity. It could have been any other pro-Palestinian rally erupting over the Israel-Hamas war if it weren’t for the fact that these thousands of protesters were actually soccer fans...
Feeld, the dating app for the curious, in collaboration with Dr. Justin Lehmiller of The Kinsey Institute, has released a groundbreaking report, “The State of Dating: How Gen Z is Redefining Sexuality and Relationships.” Released on World Sexual Health Day under the theme #PositiveRelationships, this report takes a deep dive into how Gen Z—shaped by global instability, digital immersion, and...
