Where does our sense of right and wrong come from? Most people think it is a gift from God, who revealed His laws and elevates us with His love. A smaller number think that we figure the rules out for ourselves, using our capacity to reason and choosing a philosophical system to live by.  <<<To read full article, click here.>>>

Sarah Palin’s ongoing struggle with the English language entered a new phase this week, when she called on her Twitter followers to “refudiate” the proposal to build a mosque on the site of the World Trade Center. Mockery followed, and a tweet in which she corrected herself and asked people to “refute” it. Not correct, either. Finally, she put an end to it by saying: “Refudiate, misunderestimate, wee-wee’d up. English is a living language. Shakespeare liked to coin words, too.”  <<<To read full article, click here.>>>

My hope, when all is said and done, is that we will be remembered chiefly as the people who invented—who devised and thereby also, for the first time, discovered—the perfect game, the very Platonic ideal of organized sport, the “moving image of eternity” in athleticis. I think that would be a grand posterity. <<<To read full article, click here.>>>

Tibetan children, decked out from head to foot in traditional tribal garb, danced for the nodding approval of women breastfeeding babies and long-haired, yet balding, men. Stalls sold stones (no ordinary stones – healing ones), scarves, CDs featuring the sacred chanting of Tibetan Buddhist monks, bangles, and books with titles such as The Magic of Healing and Contact with the Gods from Space.   <<<To read full article, click here.>>>

The strong version of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s argument in The Spirit Level implies that President Obama’s fight to reform health care was pointless. Extending the availability of health insurance cannot substantially improve Americans’ health. Instead, the president would make us all happier, healthier, and longer-lived, their logic suggests, if he could get the richest, say, 5 percent of Americans to leave the country.   <<<To read full article, click here.>>>

Kris Kuksi’s first artistic creation was a miniature model of a Winnebego, complete with tiny bathrooms made from construction paper. Growing up in rural Kansas in the 1970s and ’80s, imagination and glue were his tools for entertainment. He developed a knack for constructing intricate miniatures made from model kits, mechanical parts and toy soldiers.   <<<To read full article, click here.>>>

What is not as frequently remembered is that, when Forster uses the phrase in Howards End, he is not actually talking about this kind of social connection, but about something more elusive and private—the difficulty of connecting our ordinary, conventional personalities with our transgressive erotic desires.   <<<To read full article, click here.>>>

If Neanderthals ever walk the earth again, the primordial ooze from which they will rise is an emulsion of oil, water, and DNA capture beads engineered in the laboratory of 454 Life Sciences in Branford, Connecticut. Over the past 4 years those beads have been gathering tiny fragments of DNA from samples of dissolved organic materials, including pieces of Neanderthal bone.  <<<To read full article, click here.>>>

Without major compromises by all involved and the agreement to avoid the contentious issue of slaver, the framers would never have written and ratified the Constitution.   <<<To read full article, click here.>>>

If you’re looking for a contrarian take on technology, Nicholas Carr is your man. In 2003 the author touched off a debate about the role of computers in business with his article “IT Doesn’t Matter.” He caused another kerfuffle five years later with an Atlantic piece, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”   <<<To read full article, click here.>>>