Natural Disasters Offer a "Decisive Moment"

In her book, Unthinkable, reporter Amanda Ripley investigated why some people survive disasters and others don't. After examining fires, floods, hurricanes, ...

Letters from Prison to the Past

Photographer Trent Bell shared a fascinating and haunting photo project recently. Titled "Reflect," the series of images overlays images of ...

86-Year-Old Marathoner Dies with Her Shoes On

Eighty-six year old Joy Johnson, a veteran of 25 New York City marathons, died with her running shoes on. Johnson, who was the oldest runner in this year's ...

Baseball Fan Changes Seats, Nabs Four Foul Balls

Sometimes it helps to be in the right place at the right time with the right attitude of readiness. That's what happened to Greg Van Niel.

On July ...

People Accept New Ideas after Seven 'Touches'

Why do some changes happen quickly while other changes occur slowly? Writer and surgeon Dr. Atul Gawande argues that we tend to rely heavily on technology, ...

The Man behind the Designated Driver Campaign

In the 1980s, Jay Winsten, a professor at Harvard, had learned about a program in Scandinavian countries called the "designated driver." At ...

Scientist Claimed the Internet Would Be a Fad

In 1995, an American scientist named Clifford Stoll boldly predicted that the Internet would be just another passing fad. He wrote an article for Newsweek ...

Mythbusters: You Can Teach Old Dogs New Tricks

In 1523, an English animal trainer named John Fitzherbert said, "The dog must be trained when he is a whelp, or else it will not be [trained]; for ...

Painting Shows a Prophet's Change of Course

In the Sacred Museum of the Vatican, there is a sixteenth-century sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini entitled "Habakkuk and the Angel." In this ...

Russian Comedian Discovers American Grocery Stores

When the Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff immigrated to the United States, he said that the thing he loved most about America was the grocery stores. He ...