The Japanese government will for the first time formally recognize the Ainu people of Hokkaido as an indigenous people of the country.

Ian Danskin, who makes videos under the moniker Innuendo Studios, has made a name for himself on the internet for his YouTube series on the techniques and beliefs of the alt-right. His most recent video, “The Card Says Moops,” is worth watching in full, but there was one particular line in it that struck me. Danskin points out that, even when their beliefs skew towards the bizarre and conspiratorial, people on the online right often identify as “rationalists.”

In 2011, my parents gave me a sum of money that was both outrageous and, in the real estate terms of major cities, quite reasonable: 10 percent down on the 250-square-foot apartment I still own in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. While I was conflicted about taking it, there wasn’t much of a question about whether I’d accept. My writing career (any writing career!) was inherently unstable; having a roof over my head that I could not only count on but would also help me build equity meant everything.

Asheley Landrum is an assistant professor of science communication at Texas Tech University. Her focus: how cultural values affect our understanding of science. Most recently she's been looking at the rise of flat Earth theory. Incredibly, more people than ever believe in a flat Earth. Google searches for "flat earth" have grown massively over the past five years and flat Earth conventions have begun popping up all over the globe.

Hundreds of years before changing the genetic face of Bronze Age Europeans, herders based in western Asia’s steppe grasslands were already mingling and occasionally mating with nearby farmers in southeastern Europe. That surprising finding, published online February 4 in Nature Communications, raises novel questions about a pivotal time when widespread foraging and farming populations interacted in Eurasia’s Caucasus region. Those exchanges presumably sparked the geographic spread of metalworking, the wheel and wagon, and Indo-European languages still spoken in much of the world.

All the war, conflict, and misery that has beset civilisation for centuries and longer may lead you to think human society is tragically defined by a constant clash of irreconcilable cultures.

At the Angoulême International Comics Festival, there was a sense that the best days for comic books may be yet to come — in the French-speaking world, at least.

The Chinese fascination with numbers – and how much they are part of both online and offline lives – is a societal quirk that baffles long-term tourists and expats alike.

This weekend, French cultural institutes are sponsoring free intellectual rave parties in 65 cities across five continents. The Night of Philosophy and Ideas (La Nuit de la Philosophie et des Idées), which started as a small gathering among intellectuals in Paris in 2012, has become a global festival devoted to deep thinking.

On a day where Aaron Sorkin encouraged newly elected Democrats to "stop acting like young people", Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had a different plan: She jumped onto a Donkey Kong Twitch livestream and talked about how much she loved the Nintendo 64. Where do we start with this? First off some background on the livestream itself.

Half a century later, 1968 continues to resonate as a landmark year for rock, pop and soul — in part, say musicians who were there in the studio, because artists were trying things no one had before.

Could we all learn something from Norway's culture of ‘matpakke’?

Matt Zoller Seitz and Alan Sepinwall debate TV’s most famous ending.

Censorship in the country is more complicated than many Westerners imagine.

Aiia Maasarwe’s death has been used as grist for the gender culture wars, a pointless loop of generalisation, accusation and defensiveness

From Papa John's to Uber, company CEOs are now under more scrutiny than ever before, particularly driven by technology. People now have the power and transparency to keep corporate leaders accountable in the social media era. So what should you do if your CEO screws up? Jon Fortt sits down with a panel of experts to discuss the best way to handle these crises.

In 1999, the film masterfully spoofed how office life could be simultaneously mundane and ridiculous. What's different today?

Research has suggested that modern music really isn’t as good as the old classics. A study has found that golden oldies stick in millennials’ minds far more than the relatively bland, homogenous pop of today. A golden age of popular music lasted from the 1960s to the 1990s, academics claimed. Songs from this era proved to be much more memorable than tunes released in the 21st century.

he late 1940s were about bombsites, rationing, loss and mourning, but amid the gloom a new generation was emerging. In the grim, grey aftermath of war, children were born on an unprecedented scale in a population explosion: the baby boomers – born between 1946 and the mid-60s – had arrived. It was time for a new life. It was time for the young to grow up with faith in a better tomorrow.

Rewatching “The Social Network,” eight years later: What seemed like an underdog story at the time is now more of a warning.

Vardø, Norway, makes Salem look like a walk in the park.

When a former soldier learned that his village was going to be demolished 10 years ago, he picked up a brush and started painting – and he hasn’t stopped since.

Fashionable minimalism replaced plush opulence. That’s a recipe for commotion.

No, castoreum is not a cheap substitute for strawberries; it’s luxe, artisanal secretions from a beaver's rear end.

"A particularly ridiculous proposition I received last week was from a company that sells loose leaf tea that supposedly 'enhances female intuition, self-reflection, and witchyness.'" By Sophia Richards.

Pickles are an integral staple of Turkish cuisine, and a glass of pickle juice is famed as a quick, tasty and natural cure for even the fiercest of headaches.

The Little Prince, Astrid Lindgren, the Brothers Grimm, made us readers. But they came to English years ago—where’s all the stuff that’s happened since?

A few years back while on break, Kelly Young remembers pulling into an Italian steakhouse off Route 54 in Delaware. It was date night for him and his wife, Megan. They made their way to a table, sat down and, within seconds, realized they couldn’t eat there. Over on a wall, “there was the biggest TV that I’ve ever seen,” Young recalls. “It’s like me, her and the TBS movie of the week.”

We recently conducted one of the largest-ever studies on perfectionism. We learned that perfectionism has increased substantially over the past 25 years and that it affects men and women equally. We also learned that perfectionists become more neurotic and less conscientious as time passes. Perfectionism involves striving for flawlessness and requiring perfection of oneself and others. Extremely negative reactions to mistakes, harsh self-criticism, nagging doubt about performance abilities and a strong sense that others are critical and demanding also define the trait.

Hit Japanese products, from the Walkman to Pokémon, have long captivated us, but Japan's most influential export might be its own lived experience.

The question is less whether a dress or an idea is borrowed, than the uses to which it’s then put.

Officials have told them to leave, and offered them modern homes, but the residents of Zhong cave in remote southwestern China are determined to stay.

Commemorative class books evolved from practical notebooks into collections of hair clippings, rhyming couplets, and “have a great summer” wishes.

Breakfast is so integral to Van in eastern Turkey that a backstreet parallel to the main boulevard is unofficially known as ‘Breakfast Makers Street’.

I am leaving China. By Steven Balding.