In an effort to ease the intense pressure that its students face in China’s notoriously rigid exam-based education system, a school in Nanjing has created a “grade bank” that lets students “borrow” grades so that they can pass exams, and then repay them in subsequent tests. Oh man, I wish we had something like this when I[…]
In contrast to Western Europeans, new research finds contemporary East Asians are genetically much closer to the ancient hunter-gatherers that lived in the same region eight thousand years previously. 02.01.2017 Researchers working on ancient DNA extracted from human remains interred almost 8,000 years ago in a cave in the Russian Far East have found that[…]
By Dr. Melissa J. Armstrong / 02.06.2017 Assistant Professor of Neurology University of Florida Politicians and policymakers are discussing what parts of the Affordable Care Act to change and what to keep. While most of us have little control over those discussions, there is one health care topic that we can control: what we talk[…]
When one undertakes to administer justice, it must be with an even hand, and by rule; what is done for one, must be done for everyone in equal degree. Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1803 Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 02.06.2017 Brewminate Editor-in-Chief Ruby Bridges, 1960. Gelatin silver print. New York World-Telegram and Sun[…]
Tomb (of the Funeral Bed?), 470-60 B.C.E., found in the necropolis of Tarquinia (Villa Giulia, Rome) Author does not wish to be identified Before the small village of Rome became “Rome” with a capital R (to paraphrase D.H. Lawrence), a brilliant civilization once controlled almost the entire peninsula we now call Italy. This was the[…]
Photograph of Karl Marx, by John Jabez Edwin Mayall, 1875 / International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, Netherlands Lecture by Dr. Iván Szelényi / 10.01.2009 Professor Emeritus of Sociology Yale University Theory of Alienation Marx’s Early Life Karl Marx’s house in Trier, Germany / Atlas Obscura So now we move into the nineteenth century. It’s[…]
William James Bennett, “View of South Street, from Maiden Lane, New York City,” ca. 1827 / Metropolitan Museum of New York By Dr. Jane Fiegen Green / 08.01.2016 Researcher in American History Washington University, St. Louis The American Yawp Introduction In the early years of the nineteenth century, Americans’ endless commercial ambition—what one Baltimore paper[…]
By Dr. Malini Suchak / 02.01.2017 Assistant Professor of Animal Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation Canisius College “Thank you.” Two simple words, among the most repeated on a daily basis. When I travel to a foreign country, it is one of the first phrases I learn, just after “hello.” When children start making verbal requests, their[…]
Clouds pouring from the volcano on Krakatoa (aka Krakatau or Rakata) in south western Indonesia during the early stages of the eruption which eventually destroyed most of the island. Royal Society Report on Krakatoa Eruption – pub. 1888 Lithograph – Parker & Coward (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) When a volcano erupted on a small[…]
Children in the Russian Famine of 1946-1947 / Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Lewis Siegelbaum / 09.24.2015 Professor of Russian and European History Michigan State University Cars for Comrades Left: New Zaporozhets, photo by Nikolay Rakhmanov (1960) / Wikimedia Commons Right: Selling the Volga Abroad / Wikimedia Commons Cars and communism did not get along[…]
By Dr. Jan Theo Bakker / 05.05.2000 Professor of Archaeology Leiden University The ancient Roman city of Ostia was in antiquity situated at the mouth of the river Tiber, some 30 kilometres to the west of Rome. The shoreline moved seawards, due to silting, from the Middle Ages until the 19th century. Therefore Ostia is[…]
Judeo-Spanish: A Dying Language By Dr. Haïm Vidal Séphiha / 1997 Professor Emeritus of Linguistics Université Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages Institut Sépharade Européen Origins On 31 March 1492, the Spain of three religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) followed the example of other European nations. After the fall of Grenada, which[…]