The new Captain Marvel is definitely not the first female superhero. In fact she’s not even the first female Captain Marvel. But she might end up being the first truly feminist icon in mainstream superhero comics — if her series manages not to get cancelled. The upcoming series, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and drawn by Dexter Soy, features longtime Marvel character Carol Danvers as the new Captain, promoted from Ms. Marvel, and DeConnick has made it clear in a recent CBR interview that she will be a different sort of female lead:
“C’mon now, people: prove me wrong. Show me that a female-led book about the power of the human spirit, about the many guises of heroism, a book wherein no one gets raped or puts her cervix on display, can break six issues, won’t you?”
Read MoreThe patients, almost all of them men, were checked in for alcohol abuse sometime in the late 1960s. One day, instead of the usual therapy for addiction at the time, they were each taken into a quiet room, given varying levels of explanation of what was about to happen (for many of them, none at all), and given a single hit of LSD. The results included euphoria, powerful emotions, and psychological insights that often felt like a new lease on life. A few freaked out, but a little music helped.
Read MoreWhen singles sit down to create their profiles on Match.com or OkCupid, they have but a mouse and keyboard to answer a philosophically weighty question — Who am I? Not only that, but why would someone else love me? They have to capture who they really are in a way that is most attractive, but won't disappoint upon flesh-and-blood scrutiny.
Read MoreA monstrous insect thought long-extinct has been clinging to survival on a tiny spike of volcanic rock that juts out of the Tasman Sea off the coast of Australia. Considered extinct since 1930 at its original home of Lord Howe Island, the six-inch-long, nocturnal bug nicknamed "tree lobster" has survived in a colony of only 30 or so insects on a nearby sliver of an island called Ball's Pyramid. Robert Krulwich chronicles the Lord Howe stick insect's rise from the dead at his NPR blog.
Like so many colonial mishaps, the rare stick insect was thought entirely wiped out when a British ship carrying black rats crashed near Lord Howe Island in 1918. The rats made it to shore and devoured the entire species in two years — or so we thought.
Read MorePeople in Cadillac Escalades are more likely cut off pedestrians. Those with bigger bank accounts will lie to win cash prizes. And bejeweled fingers will steal candy from the mouths of children. Ok, so a slight exaggeration, but members of the upper class are, in fact, more likely to conduct unethical behavior, according to a study by published today. In a series of seven laboratory and real world experiments, wealthy subjects were more likely to break traffic rules, cheat in a game of dice, and yes, take candy intended for children.
Read MoreMatt Danzico has concluded that he lived 14 hours, 43 minutes and 29 seconds more than everyone else in 2011. That's about two-and-a-half minutes of extra perceived life each day. If you buy into the premise of the amateur self-experimentation blog The Time Hack, Matt Danzico intentionally subjected himself to one new experience daily, and to some extent, "hacked" his brain's perception of time. His hypothesis was based on research that suggests new experiences impact how the brain perceives the passage of time, and how well our brain records time's passage.
Read MoreIf you're like me, maybe 70-90% of your work communication now happens over the computer, and a quick scan of past emails will probably reveal a cringe-worthy amount of repeated phrasing: sounds good, works for me, when you get a chance, watch this video of a hedgehog, etc. What might surprise you (or not, if your job involves a lot of TPS reports), is that these textual tools in our office toolbelt appear to be pretty widespread, and some of them are heavily tied to certain power dynamics. In other words, there seems to be a common language of workplace hierarchy.
Read MoreTo mark the day, a love story between a geometric shape and the organ we know as the heart, spanning centuries and traversing medieval battlefield, cathedral, gambling hall and bedroom. Author Iain Gately details the long and meandering path the figure ♥ or cardioid, and the organ that pumps blood, took before they were united in current culture as the icon of love we call "heart." The ♥ symbol has been attributed to regeneration as a Classic Greek image of vine leaves, Viking tributes to Odin signaling battle madness, a sign of courtly love in medieval times, sacred love of Christ for the church, and low connotations of various body parts. As for the organ, its biological function was mysterious until the 17th century, and throughout history the physical seat of love has wandered to other organs, notably including the liver.
Read MoreTheories that a cat parasite can alter the minds of humans — triggering sexual desire, testosterone levels, recklessness, suicidal urges, and now even schizophrenia — are gaining momentum. A fascinating Atlantic profile of the Czech scientist leading the theories about Toxoplasma documents the mind-control hypotheses as they've grown from crackpot fringe science to heavily studied phenomena. Once seen as mainly a threat to pregnant women (it can cause brain damage in fetuses), Toxoplasma then became known as "zombie rat parasite," then "crazy cat lady parasite," and now it's gaining a reputation as the "all kinds of scary shit parasite." NPR, Radiolab, and Carl Zimmer's parasite chronicling have made it a star.
Read MoreRussian scientists pierced a 2.2-mile-thick shell of ice that protected an inky, alien lake untouched for millions of years this week, and briefly, the world seemed deeper, older, and more mysterious that it did the week before. Cloudy, unconfirmed reports started trickling in Monday about a sub-glacial lake in Antarctica, and the isolated team that had been boring into it for 20 years in the coldest place on Earth (a recorded low of minus 128.6F).
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