It began with a blog post. Last year, on April 28, software engineer and author Lauren Voswinkel published a plea for workers to disclose their salaries online with the hashtag #talkpay. The first step to rooting out discriminatory hiring practices against women and minorities was to identify...
The night is going smoothly. You’re out at the bar with your friends having a great time. Then, all of a sudden, a fight breaks out. It’s the same friend every time. He’s wildly punching another of your friends. Or the guy standing behind him. Or the...
We live in an age in which people willingly lube up homemade electrodes, strap them to their heads, and then crank up some voltage to zap their brains. It’s called transcranial direct-current stimulation, or tDCS, and it is very much a thing — there’s some slick consumer products you...
Exercise has long been considered an ideal method for dealing with anger. By channeling rage into physical activity, you turn negative emotion into improved physical health. Everything from the Mayo Clinic to self-help books to lifehacking advice extols the anger-reducing virtues of physical exertion. Using exercise to...
Once upon a time, the internet was made up of awkward personal blogs and weird webpages about string theory. Then, for a while, it was mostly made up of cats (plus some quizzes). But in the past year or so, the internet has entered a new phase:...
World-class athletes are known for their willingness to embrace extreme training regimens and unorthodox treatments in their pursuits of physical excellence — treatments that often look a little outlandish to the mere mortals who watch from the stands. During the London Olympics, beach volleyball players and others drew notice...
We live in a post-tryptophan world. The idea that turkey makes you sleepy because it has a special chemical in it has been a standard part of Thanksgiving small talk since time immemorial. Plus, having a scientific term on hand let us pretend there was a pseudo-medical...
Most of us work more than we live, which is to say we spend considerably more time at the office and with our coworkers than we do with the human beings we actually want in our lives. It also means that the stressors and anxieties of work...
For most men, waking up with an erection is as predictable as needing to pee in the morning. (Admittedly, when the two are combined, it does raise a sloppy conundrum.) But what is nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT) — affectionately known as morning wood — all about? Why does sleep seemingly inspire...
Patrick Nerrant has the “virus for tanks.” He means, of course, a “bug” for collecting tanks — his French interpretation of an old American idiom. Luckily for him, Normandy, France, where he lives and works, is a good place for a World War II tanks collector to be. Nerrant’s...
It’s 3 a.m. on a Monday. As my friends and nemeses drift out of peaceful slumber (or fevered dreams in which I seek my vengeance), I sit on the floor of a small green room. The air conditioner makes a carousel of soft animals — bear, fox, raccoon — dance, slowly...
This is the latest installment in our series Into the Black, where we hear from people who escaped the burden of unpaid bills and loans through sacrifice and ingenuity. This week we talk to Spencer Reese, a U.S. airman who went from indebted college grad to personal...
