Republicans are again sprinting toward an economic cliff.

Johann Sebastian Bach was 30 when he became head of music in Anhalt-Cöthen, in what is now Germany. Here he started an uncharted experiment in classical music: solo works for string instruments.

The Kodi box pitch is hard to resist. A little black plastic square, in look not much different from a Roku or Apple TV, and similar in function as well. This streamer, though, offers something those others never will: Free access to practically any show or movie you can dream of. No rental fees. No subscriptions. Just type in the name of a blockbuster, and start watching a high-definition stream in seconds.

The abundance of flying insects has plunged by three-quarters over the past 25 years, according to a new study that has shocked scientists. Insects are an integral part of life on Earth as both pollinators and prey for other wildlife and it was known that some species such as butterflies were declining. But the newly revealed scale of the losses to all insects has prompted warnings that the world is “on course for ecological Armageddon”, with profound impacts on human society.

Warning: Gross pics contained within. By Leanne Louie.

When you take a moment to reflect on the history of product development at Monsanto, what do you find? Here are twelve products that Monsanto has brought to market. (2011)

The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by showing what the future of farming could look like.

This is a call for a public inquiry on the current situation regarding private debt. For almost a decade now, since 2007, we have been living a lie. And that lie is preparing to wreak havoc on our economy. If we do not create some kind of impartial forum to discuss what is actually happening, the results might well prove disastrous.

The Europeana Collections has over 50 million pieces of European history in its digital archive from more than 3,000 institutions. The Europeana Photography collection, which has over 2 million photographs. Music, art, fashion, sport, natural history, and maps and geography are some of the other collections. More than 3 million of the archives are openly licensed, meaning you can use them for any purpose, and many of the images are available in high resolution.

The rituals -- fasting, wearing a hospital gown, undergoing anesthesia -- foster an expectation that the procedure will provide relief.

Hospitals and pharmacies are required to toss expired drugs, no matter how expensive or vital. Meanwhile the FDA has long known that many remain safe and potent for years longer.

Memories, points of view and the self

Taking proton-pump inhibitors, commonly prescribed to people with acid reflux, was related to an increased risk of early death from any cause, a new study finds.

Olivier Roy, one of France’s top experts on Islamic terrorism, tells Haaretz how assailants like Salman Abedi in Manchester turn into 'new radicals' who crave death

In a San Francisco federal court case, the plaintiff accused GMO giants Monsanto of hiring third-parties who hide their association with the company to respond to negative online comments, also known as ‘shills’.

If you're of the mindset that knowledge should be freely accessible to as many humans as possible, paywalls for academic journals can be downright frustrating. Now a free browser extension is promising to bust through those paywalls wherever...

Modernization, or first-strike capability? By Hans M. Kristensen, Matthew McKinzie, Theodore A. Postol.

A look at the balanced ternary notation and it’s use in Setun, a Soviet computer. By Andrew Buntine.

A great deal has been written in recent years about the perils of automation. With predicted mass unemployment, declining wages, and increasing inequality, clearly we should all be afraid. By now it’s no longer just the Silicon Valley trend watchers and technoprophets who are apprehensive. In a study that has already racked up several hundred citations, scholars at Oxford University have estimated that no less than 47% of all American jobs and 54% of those in Europe are at a high risk of being usurped by machines.

Darktable is an Open Source workflow app and raw developer for photography. Picture it as your virtual zoomable light table and darkroom at the same time.

When you examine the lives of history’s most creative figures, you are immediately confronted with a paradox: They organize their lives around their work, but not their days. Figures as different as Charles Dickens, Henri Poincaré, and Ingmar Bergman, working in disparate fields in different times, all shared a passion for their work, a terrific ambition to succeed, and an almost superhuman capacity to focus.

Sideways dictionary — it's like a dictionary, but using analogies instead of definitions. Use it as a tool for finding and sharing helpful analogies to explain technological ideas. Because if everyone understands technology better, we can make technology work better for everyone.

Long after research contradicts common medical practices, patients continue to demand them and physicians continue to deliver.

People have reported “near death experiences”, or NDE’s, over centuries and across cultures. The nature of them has historically been the territory of religion and philosophy. But now science has staked its claim in the discussion. And the questions are profound: where is consciousness produced, in the brain, or somewhere else? Can consciousness continue to exist even after the heart and brain have stopped working? Contributor Ashley Walters explores the science and the meaning of near death experiences. [Audio program]

The beautiful and otherworldly development of the human embryo has been revealed in unprecedented detail in an interactive three-dimensional atlas. The digital models, built by a team of scientists in the Netherlands, took around 45,000 hours to produce and offer researchers an unparalleled glimpse into the first eight weeks of human development.

Internal Endace documents reveal the firm’s key role helping governments harvest vast amounts of data on private emails, chats, and browsing histories. By Ryan Gallagher, Nicky Hager.

It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. By David Graeber.

Do you ever feel pressure to "find your purpose"? You don't need to stress. There's one purpose we all share, and it's easily accessible.

The idea we can be anything we choose is “such an old-fashioned notion, with absolutely no backing whatsoever.” By Olivia Goldhill.