Digital Life

The Awl and The Hairpin announced this week that they would be shutting down.

Arts

Is That Awl There Is? Remembering The Awl And The Hairpin

10:20am January 19, 2018

by Glen Weldon

The website The Awl and its sister site The Hairpin are shutting down. The two sites always valued lively, thoughtful writing — even as the media landscape shifted around them.

Queue Listen Now

Since mid-November, the value of bitcoin — shown in U.S. dollars, according to the exchange Coindesk — has rocketed up and plummeted. Grayed area denotes the daily price ranges, and the date range ends on Jan. 17.

Economy

Cryptocurrency Investors Worry, Wait After Bitcoin Price Drop

4:40pm January 18, 2018

by Asia Simone Burns

There are hundreds of digital currencies worldwide. The price of the largest, best known one just plummeted by 50 percent. Now, investors are watching for a boom — or a bust.

The futurist artist Luigi Russolo (left) with his noise machine, invented for futurist "symphonies," one of which was performed at the London Coliseum in June 1914.

Music & Culture

Too Much Music: A Failed Experiment In Dedicated Listening

10:53am January 16, 2018

by James Jackson Toth

In the streaming era, music fans have access to more music than they could ever consume. Is there any way to slow things down?

A boy carries a sack of grain from a dugout canoe to shore in the village of Ambohitsara in eastern Madagascar, characterized as a low-income country by the World Bank.

Your Turn: How Are Poor Countries Portrayed By Aid Groups And The Media?

8:55pm January 12, 2018

by Malaka Gharib

The controversy over President Trump's description of El Salvador, Haiti and African countries has global thinkers asking whether the aid community is partly to blame.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg laughs as he meets with a group of entrepreneurs and innovators during a roundtable discussion at Cortex Innovation Community technology hub, in November, in St. Louis.

Facebook Rolls Out New Plan For News Feed: More Posts From Friends And Family

7:29am January 12, 2018

by Scott Neuman

CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the social media giant wants to emphasize more "meaningful" content on users' feeds to "bring us closer together with the people that matter to us."

Ezzard Turner, a dean at the City on a Hill Circuit Street charter school in Boston, returns students' phones after locking them in pouches for the school day. A new policy at the school aims to literally contain distractions by requiring the phones to st

National

A School's Way To Fight Phones In Class: Lock 'Em Up

2:25pm January 11, 2018

by Tovia Smith

At a Boston charter school, administrators take students' phones and lock them in a soft pouch until the end of the day. "It sucks," grumbles one student.

Logan Paul came under heavy criticism for a video he posted on YouTube depicting a dead body, apparently the result of suicide.

YouTube Limits Relationship With Logan Paul After His Video Depicting Dead Body

10:43am January 11, 2018

by Colin Dwyer

More than a week after Paul removed a post showing him laughing beside an apparent suicide victim, YouTube pulled the star from its top-tier advertising program and shelved planned original projects.

Two hundred years ago, Mary Shelley warned us about entering into realms of science we were not sure we could control, says Marcelo Gleiser.

Man As God: 'Frankenstein' Turns 200

12:50pm January 10, 2018

by Marcelo Gleiser

Mary Shelley cautioned us of the dangers of extending science into realms where we have little control of the outcomes; may we all read her tale — and take in its lessons, says Marcelo Gleiser.

In 2014, user data on OkCupid showed that most men on the site rated black women as less attractive than women of other races and ethnicities. That resonated with Ari Curtis, 28, and inspired her blog, Least Desirable.

National

'Least Desirable'? How Racial Discrimination Plays Out In Online Dating

1:39pm January 09, 2018

by Ashley Brown

Research shows that online dating coincided with an increase in interracial marriages. But some dating app users say that Asian men and black women can still have a tougher time finding love online.

Queue Listen Now

AI's virtual assistants have a dramatic history, says Jimena Canales.

Science

Siri, Cortana, And Alexa Carry The Marks Of Their Human Makers

1:01pm January 09, 2018

by Jimena Canales

Before you dismiss them as inhuman or inhumane, consider their dramatic personal histories — and their ancestor grande damme Eliza, says guest blogger Jimena Canales.