JSTOR Daily

You can’t spot a liar just by looking.

The positives and negatives of our behavioural immune system.

Get to know more about the dispute.

Although it often gets a bad reputation, sci-fi offers readers a way to rethink social dilemmas.

The philosophical answer to why we can't stop daydreaming about adventures gone by.

Netflix's hit show "Bridgerton" is based on the famous romantic sub-genre.

A utopian strain in sci-fi fandom brought readers uncomfortably close to an alignment with fascism.

Our newest culinary trend is also our oldest.

The White House Transition project is a pivotal resource for a newcomer government — here is how it works.

In American society, white women are often understood as victims. But they can also be perpetrators.

Analysing the psychology of voting.

Emperors were also married to women, but their male companions were an important part of their lives.

Children's world is a lot darker, weirder and perhaps more creatively resilient than adults often assume.

Colombia and Haiti have both been ignited by protests - did it start 200 years ago?

How do we separate neuro-snake oil from real neural healing and enhancement?

The complicated journey to understand the heart.

More than 100 years ago, Sylvia Beach, opened the doors to her legendary bookstore.

“Carpe diem” doesn’t really mean “seize the day".

We've all received a scam email, here's how scammers use language to trick their victims.

He wanted to privatise the Grand Canyon. When that failed, he ran for Senate.

Analysing the power of organising, even between seemingly disparate groups.

James Graham was a man who captivated London in the late eighteenth-century with his "Temple of Health" - which as it turns out was based on nothing more than great showmanship. Perhaps this man's fate offers a few lessons for a fresh wave of influencers.

One microorganism has been tirelessly producing a tenth of all the oxygen on earth. But these bacteria, known as Prochlorococcus, are in jeopardy. Lena Zeldovich in JSTOR examines how plastic pollution within our oceans could be costing us our most precious resource.

Where did the prestige for economic success as a worker derive from, and what does it tell us about a growing group of people who would rather earn less money to have a fulfilling job. Livia Gershon, writing in JSTOR daily, dives deeper.

It’s real. And it will use quantum entanglement to generate true mathematical randomness. Here’s why that matters.

August 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the famous Woodstock festival, which epitomized a generation. And Matthew Wills, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at how the rock concert was fraught with controversy before it even happened.

We've all heard of Stockholm Syndrome: the pop psychology phrase born in 1973. But, what really happened on that summer day in Stockholm? Kristin Hunt unfolds the events and what they reveal about our cultural attitudes toward violence.

2019 marks the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman’s birth, the American poet, essayist, and journalist who also referred to black people as “baboons” and “wild brutes”. Lavelle Porter, writing in JSTOR Daily looks at the answers from Black America to his work - and considers if or how we should celebrate a problematic artist.

“When government wouldn’t fund female fieldwork, Agnes Chase pulled together her own resources”, writes ​Lina Zeldovich ​in Jstor Daily. Chase, a researcher with a particular penchant for grass, defied the odds when her activism was threatened.

Can metaphors be used as a mechanism for mass persuasion and to shape political perceptions? James Tapper writing in JSTOR Daily uses the example of Brexit and its accompanying metaphors to highlight the significance and persuasive powers of metaphors.

Mary Anning, dressed in a petticoat and bonnet, climbed precarious cliffs to find prehistoric fossils and whose contribution to paleontology may be even greater than we know.

Why Can’t the TSA Just Go on Strike? Eric Schewe, writing in JSTOR, reveals that the post- 9/11 expansion of federal powers in the US over transportation security was also an extension of power over the security workforce.

Jeannette Cooperman, writing in JSTOR, investigates what is causing the rise of hoarding disorder and why is it so prevalent.

Mark Sussman, writing in JSTOR Daily, reveals the plan to sell Texas to Great Britain.

Livia Gershon, writing in JSTOR Daily, makes the case for lowering the voting age.

Neither banning nor recycling will rid us of Styrofoam. Katherine Martinelli, writing in JSTOR Daily, considers whether the 30- Year-long styrofoam war is nearing its end.

Eric Schewe, writing in JSTOR Daily, considers whether a Universal Basic Income could lead to economic security in the United States.

Amy Shearn writes in JSTOR Daily about the time when 19th-century novelists Harriet Beecher Stowe and George Eliot were penpals.

Farah Mohammed, writing in JSTOR Daily, examines an 18th-century social contract of pirates, which reveals just how organized and codified pirate societies could be.

Looking for the ghosts of the Morris-Jumel mansion.

The differences between "women's tastes" and "men's tastes" are long entrenched in American cultural history.

Amelia Soth writes in JSTOR Daily about The Book of Stones, a central alchemical text from the 8th century which contained the formula to create living tissue from ordinary matter.

Roe v. Wade left Americans with the idea that privacy can be expected. Alexandra Samuel, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at the ground-breaking case’s legacy in the digital age.

Martha Henriques writes in JSTOR Daily about how ventriloquism tricks our brains, which place more weight on vision than hearing when we try to identify the source of a sound.

Amelia Soth, writing in JSTOR Daily, tells the story of the Medieval French castle that pranked its visitors with sadistic slapstick.

Peter Feuerherd, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks back at the allegations that Leftist Jews fixed the 1919 World Series.

Mary Cappello, writing in JSTOR Daily, delves into the meaning of entrapment and escape throughout history.

Naomi Elster, writing in JSTOR Daily, explains how DNA evidence can lead to wrongful convictions.

Britain's forgotten language.

Is it possible for anything positive to come of mass fish die-offs caused by hippopotamus excrement? Lina Zeldovich, writing in JSTOR Daily, finds the silver lining.

Understand the world better: our current political climate is loaded with hateful language.

The more we learn about the universe, the less we understand it. Research suggests that dark matter and dark energy make up most of the universe, up to 70 per cent, in fact, in the case of dark energy. But as James MacDonald, writing in JSTOR Daily points out, we also have no clue what this dark matter and energy consists of. We are, quite literally, in the dark about it.

MTurk has ushered in a golden age in survey research, so is it ethical?

A splatter of red. A man looking terrified. The words “So shocking it was filmed behind locked studio doors” in capital letters. It’s the poster for the 1949 film, ‘The Red Menace.’ Peter Feuerherd, writing in JSTOR Daily, explains how Hollywood thrived throughout the Cold War by producing anti- Communist films.

Could the unwavering success of the Harry Potter stories be attributed to the influences of Arthurian Romance? Amy Shearn, writing in JSTOR Daily, examines how JK Rowling’s books rework the iconic hero stories of medieval French Arthurian romances.

While it’s nearly impossible for celebrities today to maintain any sort of private life, it would appear that much can remain unknowable in even a well-chronicled life from almost two centuries ago. Matthew Wills, writing in JSTOR Daily, examines the very big possibility that Mark Twain pulled a prank on the radical abolitionist Boston Vigilance Committee in 1854.

Mother Superior Benedetta Carlini was a well-respected nun in seventeenth century Italy. That is until the revelation that she was having sexual relations with another woman at the convent had her hard- earned but fragile status taken away. Hannah Steinkopf-Frank, writing in JSTOR Daily, details the transgressive life of a remarkable woman, and speaks to Judith Brown, a historian who faced obstacles of her own when writing her 1986 book ‘Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy’.

Does running on a treadmill at the gym sometimes feel like torture? Well, that’s because it’s meant to. Diane Peters, writing in JSTOR Daily, runs us through the surprising history of the machine.

In his famous book ‘Walden’, Henry David Thoreau wrote: “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life." But Erin Blakemore, writing in JSTOR Daily, suggests that his dwelling in the woods was far from “essential”.

Nintendo’s video game, Super Mario Odyssey, and Homer’s original epic poem have a lot more in common than you might think. Grant Shreve, writing in JSTOR Daily, explores their fascinating, parallel depictions of marriage.

Is contemporary rapper Kendrick Lamar continuing Tupac Shakur’s legacy as a hip hop saviour?

Louisa May Alcott’s classic 1868 novel Little Women has been adapted into many films and television series over the years. Benjamin Winterhalter, writing in JSTOR Daily, reminisces about the summer he spent as a child, watching every adaptation, and shares his thoughts on each.

We are all born optimists. As we grow up our failures and hardships turn us into cynical adults, but children still display a positivity bias: a tendency to selectively process information that promotes positive judgments about things. Janet Boseovski, writing in JSTOR Daily, details the pros and cons of this optimism, and what we adults can learn from it.

On his way from Virginia to New York to take up the presidency, George Washington decided to immerse himself in the communities he would soon govern. But some of the inns and public houses he stayed in were less than impressive. His handwritten reviews still exist, and Rachel Bernstein, writing in JSTOR Daily, shares what is effectively the founding father’s eighteenth-century Yelp account.

Almost all addiction memoirs follow the same story of struggle, realization and rehabilitation. And yet, as a genre, they are extremely popular. Lisa Levy, writing in JSTOR Daily, reviews The Recovering: Intoxication and its Aftermath, by former alcoholic Leslie Jamison, who wonders what it is that makes such narratives so compelling despite their sameness: is it the dark addiction years or the hopeful ending?

Lina Zeldovich grew up in a family of scientists, listening to bedtime stories about volcanoes. Writing in JSTOR Daily, she shares the tale of how a volcanic eruption may have influenced Iceland’s conversion to Christianity.

In the popular children’s TV show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Fred Rogers pioneered a world where creativity reigned, emotions could be discussed, and supportive adults listened. Cynthia Greenlee, writing in JSTOR Daily, pays tribute to the show’s progressive legacy.

Doctor Charles Knowlton was imprisoned for writing about birth-control. His 1832 book, Fruits of Philosophy, also contained the first detailed writing about the female reproductive system ever published in the United States. Amy Sohn writes in JSTOR Daily about the book, the man, his trials, and legacy.

By spraying a painful brew of boiling hot chemicals, the bombardier beetle punches well above its weight. James MacDonald, writing in JSTOR Daily, profiles one of nature’s most terrifying and surprising creatures.

James MacDonald, writing in JSTOR Daily, shares the remarkable story of how the wisdom of Navajo elders helped climate scientists fight Hantavirus outbreaks in the American West.

In many #MeToo stories, crucial signals, verbal and non-verbal cues, are sent but not received. Is it due to willful passivity, willful ignorance… or something else altogether? Linguist Chi Luu, writing in JSTOR Daily, provides a guide to navigating the indirect language and cues of consent.

From Karel Čapek’s 1920 play, Rossum’s Universal Robots and the 1982 cult film, Blade Runner, to HBO’s 2016 hit series, Westworld. The prospect of artificial consciousness has enticed us for decades, but as it increasingly becomes plausible, Sidney Perkowitz, writing in JSTOR Daily, considers whether we have moral obligations to robots.

How the DM has replaced the letter.

Ernst Röhm’s homosexuality was no secret. Hyper-masculine and head of the Brownshirts, he was one of Hitler’s most important right-hand-men. Matthew Wills, writing in JSTOR Daily, uncovers the story of the most powerful gay Nazi.

They saw miniature fairies inside of everything. Olivia Campbell, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at the Victorian obsession with the magic of microbiology and how it affected our appreciation of science.

Are children as guilty as adults when they commit a crime?

Democracy is about letting the people rule. But asking everyone’s opinion on every political decision would be impossible. So why do we sometimes have referendums and do they even help democracy? Farah Mohammed, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at both sides of the question.

There was nothing sexy about going to the greengrocer’s, then the butcher’s, then the bakery. But when the supermarket arrived, what it meant to be a housewife changed drastically. Erin Blakemore, writing in JSTOR Daily, charts a history of gender, power and shopping carts.

Do androids dream of electric Mr. Darcys? Matt Langione, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at the attempts to humanise AI programs by feeding them works of literature.

Pop pills to pay the bills. From lawyers to dentists, we’re all on amphetamines now. Kate Bielamowicz, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at the spread of performance-enhancing drugs in the American workplace.

With floods devastating parts of the UK and Venice, can we re-engineer cities to be more 'absorbent'?

Leaves brewing, the empire expanded. Livia Gershon, writing in JSTOR Daily, reveals the very un-British origins of tea and how it came to define the growth of the British Empire.

Queer lives follow their own temporal logic.

Is Facebook evil or are we just using it wrong? Farah Mohammed, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at the potential that the social network has to actually improve our social bonds and mental health.

Life is good and extinction is bad… right? Kevin Litman-Navarro, writing in JSTOR Daily, considers the ethics of eradicating a whole species, even if it is the mosquito that spread the Zika virus and the Dengue Fever.

Silence ruled the Ottoman empire. Amelia Soth, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at how a secretive sign language came to dominate the inner sanctum of the Sultan’s court.

Erotic cakes, druids and mistletoe. James Macdonald, writing in JSTOR Daily, reveals how the ancients celebrated the winter solstice, long before Christ and Santa Claus.

The big red guy who squeezes down your chimney on Christmas eve, you know the one, where did he come from? Matthew Wills, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at the origins of Santa Claus.

Livia Gershon, writing in JSTOR Daily, wonders when it is that we started to see Christmas as an occasion for giving gifts to children?

If you remember something that didn't happen, are you still responsible for it?

How the sweetest drink became a staple of US military taste. Livia Gershon, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at the military history of rum and coke.

Does anything new even get made anymore? Star Wars Episode 8, a new Lord of The Rings TV series. Grant Shreve, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at how Don Quixote may be at the root of the modern movie reboot.

Sherlock Thoreau. You heard that right. Erin Blakemore, writing in JSTOR Daily, explores the unusual theory that the residents of 221b Baker Street and the cabin at Walden were in fact the same person.

When we bury our nuclear waste miles underground, how do we ensure that our descendants won’t give into curiosity and dig it all up? Matt Langione, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at how symbols and architecture could save future generations from disaster.

Misogyny, martinis and murder. Benjamin Winterhalter, writing in JSTOR Daily, considers the wider purpose of the fictional super-spy, James Bond.

Martin Luther’s body type mattered. Matthew Wills, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks out how the great reformer’s corpulent physicality contributed to his take on Christianity.

What would world history look like if Columbus and other sea-faring Europeans never reached the Americas? Greg Rosalsky, writing in JSTOR Daily, revisits the economist Preston McAfee’s remarkable modelling experiment.

From confederates and unionists to communist utopias. Matthew Wills, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at the American Civil War’s surprising influence on Karl Marx.

Today, the public gaze rarely spares the children of the famous—but when did such an obsession begin? Erin Blakemore, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at the precocious celebrity of Alice Roosevelt.

Slimy yet shocking, the electric eel fuels the fears of many an aquatic imagination.

Death might mean eternal sleep, but if it doesn't, you'll sure be hungry when you wake up. James MacDonald reveals how ancient peoples planned to keep their dead well-fed.

Kirk/Spock erotica, voice-control, the smartphone. We owe so much to Star Trek. Alexandra Samuel wonders whether with its return to our screens in 2017, we might remember how to see technology as a force for social change?

Make something that people want. It seems obvious, but not that many companies get it right. Farah Mohammed explains the key to startup success.

Understanding the revealing, but often overlooked language of murder.

Amidst the devastation of a flooded city, fire ants have been seen creating organic rafts, floating atop the water. James MacDonald explains their extraordinary organizational skills.

Does being religious make you more authoritarian? Matthew Wills shows that it really depends on the type of religion you follow. Do you question your beliefs? Or do you blindly follow pre-determined dogma?

There were pigs and locusts in the courtroom. In Medieval Europe, animals were regularly tried and sentenced for the pains they inflicted on a local community. Sonya Vatomsky shines a light on a little-known side of legal history – when animals were regularly put on trial.

The brother Brontë, Branwell was a talented painter and a writer, but is today hardly remembered. Matthew Wills reflects on the difficulty to pen accurate biographies of the incredible family who wrote too little and died too early

Why is there a West Virginia? Matthew Wills reveals the Civil War origins of the scenic Appalachian state.

Today we learn about a remarkable case in 1953, where the conviction of a man for murder hinged on the use of a single word. Chi Luu tells us more and also examines how forensic linguistics can shine new light on tricky cases but also has the potential to ruin innocent lives.

Prohibition closed the bar, and San Francisco’s favourite cocktail could no longer be enjoyed. The secret to the mix was even said to have died with its inventor. April White hunts for the forgotten recipe of the legendary Pisco punch.

Many young girls grow up being discouraged from certain scientific disciplines, but this wasn’t always the case. Erin Blakemore explores how it was the professionalization of science in the 19th century that excluded women.

Smartphones are distracting and change the way people behave in social settings—but this doesn’t just apply to teenagers. Alexandra Samuel responds to Jean Twenge’s research and argues that it is parents who are most affected by recent technological shifts and that this in turn can have a very real impact on their children’s development.

The story of a prosperous African-American community, tragically seen as a threat to white-dominated American capitalism.

It was a children’s book that explicitly grappled with quantum theory and the problem of evil. Kaitlyn Teer, writing in JSTOR Daily, considers the enduring success of “A wrinkle in time”.

Is the internet full of mindless content or has most of human output always been painfully subpar?

The gig economy is changing the way that people work, but instead of freeing the employee is it just freeing companies from responsibility? Farah Mohammed, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at the troubles surrounding the gig economy and one academic’s practical solution.

Correct grammar don’t exist. Pedants are mistaken.

Are written and spoken language really two different things?

We look at why the condom has taken a winding path to social acceptance.

History offers up many odd and unexpected friendships, but few more so than that between the writers Helen Keller and Samuel Clemens (better known by his pen-name Mark Twain).

How to understand the words on the tip of your tongue.

When refrigeration was first invented, people were left unimpressed, with many blaming it for causing a “fruity flavour” in eggs.

Is there an alien ocean capable of hosting life right here in our solar system?

What if the legalisation of marijuana lead to better public health? Ruth Graham, writing in JSTOR Daily, looks at the emerging research and changing public opinion on the issue.

How freedom from the confines of female dress allowed intellectuals and artists to be seen on their own terms.

Marathons are notoriously gruelling but athletic ambition knows few bounds.

A look at an app that helps deal with grief by mimicking the conversational style of a dead loved one.

Was the first potato chip really made to spite a difficult customer who’d complained about his too thick French fries?

How a turn of the century lesbian couple founded the field of home economics.

It’s a small slimy animal that drinks your blood. Does it also help in healing?

How insidious interpretations of mental health have lingered until today.

Why do we feel comfortable sharing secrets through screens?

Writing for Jstor Daily Cara Strickland wonders why Turkish Delight was C.S. Lewis’s Guilty Pleasure.