Teaching cursive handwriting doesn’t have nearly the value we think it does.

Over the first week of the Rio Olympics, an ancient narrative played out in the men’s rugby sevens tournament. Rising through a field of 12, the Fiji national team dispatched powerhouses New Zealand and Great Britain on its way to a gold medal, the first of any kind for the small South Pacific nation. Having […]

When Simone Manuel received the gold for the women’s 100-meter freestyle swim at the Rio Olympics in early August, the win represented more than just the culmination of Manuel’s many years of training and a victory for her country. It was a triumph over long-held racist stereotypes that black people are poor swimmers. Manuel was […]

On the second day of the Rio Olympics, American swimmer Michael Phelps won his 19th gold medal (he would go on to win four more), becoming the world’s most decorated Olympic athlete. The next day, Phelps revealed that he also has what may be the world’s best game face. While waiting for a semifinal race, […]

I bet when you woke up this morning, even before you opened your eyes, you knew where all of your limbs were. You didn’t have to look at, or try moving them, to feel their presence. This is because you have the power of proprioception (it’s also sometimes called “kinesthesis”). Because it’s a sense, just […]

In the slightly surreal yet decidedly wonderful 2003 animated film The Triplets of Belleville, three drugged cyclists pedal stationary bikes on-stage in a theatre while French mafia types bet on which of them will win their “race”—as they pedal, they gaze at film of a road course projected onto a screen in front of them, […]