Culture & Religion — September 24, 2014

Cotton Mill Worker in North Carolina, 1908

This photograph depicting a young girl at work in a North Carolina cotton mill was taken by the American photographer Lewis W. Hine (1874 – 1940) in 1908. Child labor in the cotton industry was not outlawed in that state until 1933. You can view a collection of Hine’s other photos at the Getty Search Gateway website here.

Source: Getty Images

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

Up Next

Surprising Science

Better Models of Our Nature: Social Scripts And Self-Command

Better models of our nature are needed. Freud’s ideas, though discredited by many, still haunt the arts, and exert influence within science. Three ideas buried in Steven Pinker’s book about declining violence can help.