Trying to improve your performance at work or write that novel? Maybe it’s time to consider the color of your walls or your computer screen. If a new study is any guide, the color red can make people’s work more accurate, and blue can make people more creative. NYT | related webcast... View full entry
They are unique musical personalities from some of the world's most troubled areas - what makes them different is their need to communicate their politics through music. They come from Nigeria, Mozambique, the favelas of Brazil, Cape Verde, Southern Sahara and inner-city London. Series via Al... View full entry
A feces-extruding artwork described as a "mechanized sculpture" continues to draw record crowds to the University of Quebec in Montreal. "Art should be useless. And this is very useless, but it's entertaining," Belgian conceptual artist Wim Devoye says of his notorious work Cloaca No. 5, which... View full entry
"Increasingly, only those at the upper end of the middle class, who are affluent enough to afford not only the sharply higher housing prices in every corner of the city but also the steep costs of child care and private schools, can afford to stay... Equally disturbing, even in good times, the... View full entry
Barbie's body has come under criticism for offering girls unrealistic expectations of womanhood, and even for inspiring eating disorders and related pathologies. For the 50th anniversary of Barbie, designboom presents a snapshot report with over 100 images of the making of Barbie, from a... View full entry
During the cold and dark Berlin winter days, I spend a lot of time with my boys in their room. And as I look at the toys scattered on the floor, my mind inevitably wanders back to New York. Abstract City | The Boys and the Subway View full entry
“So what do you do?” “I sell potato peelers on the street.” NYT | watch View full entry
Reading this Guardian article by Hadley Freeman on Kanye West's enthusiastic blogging about offbeat design and architecture got me to wondering. Given Kanye West's celebrity status and the growing popularity of his blog, is he doing more to encourage a wider adoption of the "Modern" aesthetic in... View full entry
Video for Towa Tei’s “Mind Wall,” featuring Miho Hatori, directed by Takeshi Nakamura. View full entry
An academic maverick is challenging conventional wisdom on Canada's prehistory by claiming an archeological site in southern Alberta is really a vast, open-air sun temple with a precise 5,000-year-old calendar predating England's Stonehenge and Egypt's pyramids.Globe & Mail View full entry
An apartment left untouched since before the fall of the Berlin Wall has been discovered in the city of Leipzig, according to German media. Telegraph View full entry
John Hoyer Updike, American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic, has died at the age of 76. Village Voice View full entry
The first edition of twice-daily paper The Printed Blog is available starting today. CBC View full entry
Palestinians are busy restoring the bomb-damaged tunnels, and consumer goods are starting to flow into Gaza again. Al Jazeera's Jeremy Young describes the process of filming inside them. aljazeera | tunnel diggers View full entry
The former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where more than a million people were killed in World War II, faces an uncertain future. Pawel Sawicki of the Auschwitz Museum explains the problems of preserving the ageing and crumbling 191-hectare site, with limited funds.BBC News View full entry