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AddAva Kofman reports on Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang, the Los Angeles couple who ran Mark Surrogacy, an agency that they used to hire more than a dozen women to carry their children.
Talkspace has amassed “one of the largest mental health data banks in the world,” according to reports to investors, containing 140 million message exchanges.
Despite years of debate and follow-up studies, an odd streak of cosmic light still defies a final explanation. Is it a giant black hole screaming through intergalactic space?
World War II has faded into movies, anecdotes, and archives that nobody cares about anymore. Are we finally losing the war?
A blog series in which I reread LOTR 50 years after I first read it, age 10, over the winter of 1975-76. Pippin and Merry come as a double act (not exactly ‘dumb and dumber’, but not a million miles from that either) in the Jackson film version of LOTR, providing both light relief and…
Hey folks! I am working on finishing up some things this week, so I thought I would post the text of the keynote I gave at the Prancing Pony Podcast Moot earlier this December. I've made some minor edits to conform a bit more to the form of a blog post, but this remains very…
Artemis II astronauts updated the iconic 1968 image during their 2026 loop around the Moon.
NFTs, the metaverse and AI are the most recent Silicon Valley enthusiasms. Does anyone remember how to build a consumer product?
In 2013, education reformers tried to help poor students the using the best tool at their disposal: The 16th most popular Ted Talk.Special thanks to Marcus Credé! Where to find us: Our PatreonOur merch!Peter's newsletterPeter's other podcast, 5-4Mike's other podcast, Maintenance PhaseSo...
Why aren't the Greens offering a stronger challenge to the political establishment?
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
Criticism of public schools is not entirely wrong – but by ignoring unequal conditions, it misdiagnoses the problem and misplaces responsibility.
Woke 2 is Woke 1 with an honest relation to power.
Here’s a mystery: below 8,400 meters there are no fish. There are other creatures: sea cucumbers, anemones, tiny worms, but no one has ever seen a fish. At 8,370 meters? There are fish. But not below 8,400 meters. At its deepest the ocean reaches roughly 11,000 meters, so there is plenty of space. And right below 8,400