Category: ideas

Lawrence Wright, author of Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief, and Alex Gibney, director of the book’s film adaptation, explain. (video)

‘The hormones used in male-to-female transitions have no effect on the vocal cords, meaning that even after a cosmetic and surgical transition into women, the male-sounding voice often keeps transgender people tied to their old identities.” So a small group of voice specialists have developed techniques to teach transgender women how to make their speech patterns match their gender expression.

“Your stereo is searching for something better than what you’re listening to now? You need a new book? We hear you. Here are our recommendations for what’s streaming on TV, what should be rocking your apartment and great reads to curl up with.”

“Henry VIII has lost some of his palaces and our chances of dining with him on venison and his beloved marzipan sweets are gone – but we can still find the spirit of the Tudors in what they’ve left behind.”

“Adults who speak multiple languages seem to resist the effects of dementia far better than monolinguals do.”

“If technology moves along a linear axis, it is complemented by a cyclical resurgence of human forgetting, folly and failure. We might not be in danger of lapsing into the Dark Ages, but we do find ourselves relearning the same life-or-death lessons each generation.”

“The general trend to introduce mathematical thinking into various sciences (including disciplines that did not previously use any math tools, such as biology, psychology, and medicine), is slowly extending to the humanities. For now, we have had some rare efforts in language studies (theoretical linguistics) and literary theory (the application of information theory to the study of literary texts, especially poetry).”

Joshua Rothman: “Given its omnipresence, it’s tempting to say that grumbling may be the quintessential modern speech act. … Susan Sontag dedicated Notes on Camp to camp’s patron saint, Oscar Wilde. These far humbler notes are dedicated to that great grumbler Oscar the Grouch.”

“Worrying alone does not have to be toxic, but it tends to become toxic because in isolation we lose perspective. We tend to globalize, catastrophize, when no one is there to act as a reality check. Our imaginations run wild.”

“The cost of modern skepticism about scientific virtue is paid not just by scientists but by all of us. The complex problems once belonging solely to the spheres of prudence and political action are now increasingly conceived as scientific problems: if the global climate is indeed warming, and if the cause is human activity, then policies to restrict carbon emissions are warranted; if hepatitis C follows an epidemiological trajectory resulting in widespread liver failure, then the high price of new drugs may be justified.”