If there's a spiritual lesson here, it would seem to be that one should regard claims made by people named "Malarkey" with a strong degree of skepticism. In a surprising admission this week, Alex Malarkey, who with his father Kevin co-wrote the 2010 New York Times bestseller "The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven," declared that he has not, in fact, ever visited heaven. The Malarkeys scored a literary

This article originally appeared on Religion Dispatches. Israel’s Prime Minister was arguing with the Pope over what language Jesus spoke” sounds like the setup to a weird joke. Which, actually, it is. Lasting just a few seconds, the dustup reflects centuries of attempts to claim Jesus through speech and to transform his native language and original words into sacred linguistic relics. In case you

Twelve years ago, Jason Padgett had never made it past pre-algebra. And then a violent mugging changed everything Excerpted from "Struck By Genius: How a Brain Injury Made Me a Mathematical Marvel" If you could see the world through my eyes, you would know how perfect it is, how much order runs through it, and how much structure is hidden in its tiniest parts. We're so often victims of things—I se

This article originally appeared on GlobalPost. SEOUL, South Korea — The headlines are regular and morbid: a shamed celebrity or politician takes her own life, a student leaps off a bridge after being rejected from a first-class university, and an ailing grandfather commits suicide to relieve the financial burden on the family. South Koreans are under enormous pressure to succeed at work, school a

This article originally appeared on AlterNet. Americans have become huge. Between the 1960s and the 2000s, Americans grew, on the average, an inch taller and 24 pounds heavier. The average American man today weights 194 pounds and the average woman 165 pounds. The growing girth has led to the creation of special-sized ambulances, operating tables and coffins as well as bigger seats on planes and t

Jenni Laidman February 22, 2014 8:00pm (UTC) This article was originally published by Scientific American. People born with Down syndrome have always been considered to be incurably developmentally delayed—until now. In the past few years a number of laboratories have uncovered critical drug targets within disabled chemical pathways in the brain that might be restored with medication. At least two

What is mental illness? Schizophrenia? Autism? Bipolar disorder? Depression? Since the 1950s, the profession of psychiatry has attempted to provide definitive answers to these questions in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Often called The Bible of psychiatry, the DSM serves as the ultimate authority for diagnosis, treatment and insurance coverage of mental illness. Now, i

Cynical universities and a craven student-loan system profit. Students graduate into unemployment and crushing debt Excerpted from "The Lawyer Bubble: A Profession In Crisis" "In the spring of 1974 — purely speculatively, I told myself — I took the Law School Admissions Test. — Scott Turow, "One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School" Unlike Scott Turow, I always wanted

The Israel Defense Forces employed social media to chilling effect today, demonstrating that it is proud to kill those it deems a threat to Israeli citizens. On YouTube it posted video that it says shows the assassination of a high-level target: On Nov. 11, 2012, the IDF targeted Ahmed Jabri, the head of Hamas' military wing, in the Gaza Strip. Jabri was a senior Hamas operative who served in the