1. 7 Cool Political Maps That Show How Old Historical Events Still Haunt The World Today
One example from Poland:
The orange regions are the Powiats (counties) won by the socialist Civic Platform, while the blue are the Powiats won by the conservative Law and Justice platform:
...overlay this map of the old border of Imperial Germany and Imperial Russia over the map, as David G.D. Hecht did for the Big Think strange maps blog:
2. Life as a Teenager in 1994, 2014, and 2034 – What a difference a generation makes! – Part 2
Lengthy article documenting changes in the recent past and projecting the future.
3. 15 Trends That Are Shaping The Future
4. Only Half Of Americans Know Their Neighbors' Names
5. The New Golden Age of Archaeology Is Right Now
... A fellow at National Geographic and an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Parcak often tells her students, "A picture is worth a thousand words. A satellite image is worth a million dollars." She's a space archaeologist, part of a growing community of specialists who use satellite imagery and remote sensing technology to find ancient sites once invisible to the naked eye. ...
6. America's Civil War: Unnecessary But Transformational
... Was the conflict necessary to end slavery? Writes Goldfield: “there may have been other means to achieve that noble end. In fact, the United States was the only country to require a civil war in order to abolish slavery.” In every other nation except Haiti slavery was eliminated peacefully.
Why, then, civil war? Goldfield looks beyond the conventional wisdom. For instance, he points to evangelical Christianity in stoking America’s political fires. He explains: “The elevation of political issues into moral causes poisoned the democratic process. Just as evangelicals did not distinguish between the Catholic Church and Catholic immigrants, so they did not separate the sin of slavery from the slaveholder. In a crusade, the enemy is the infidel, and eventually both sides viewed the other as apostates to God and the constitution.”
Of course, other factors also radicalized the political debate. But evangelical Christians split along sectional lines, many giving their loyalty to politics before the Gospel. ...
7. Libertarians By the Numbers: A Demographic, Religious and Political Profile
8. The Backfire Effect shows why you can't use facts to win an argument
"Never let the facts get in the way of a good story" isn't just a maxim for shady politicians and journalists. It's also the way people often live their lives. One study indicates that there may even be a "backfire effect," which happens when you show people facts that contradict their opinions. ...
9. Americans' Belief That Gov't Is Too Powerful at Record Level
10. American view on legalizing Marijuana
11. Turning Education Upside Down
Three years ago, Clintondale High School, just north of Detroit, became a “flipped school” — one where students watch teachers’ lectures at home and do what we’d otherwise call “homework” in class. Teachers record video lessons, which students watch on their smartphones, home computers or at lunch in the school’s tech lab. In class, they do projects, exercises or lab experiments in small groups while the teacher circulates.
Clintondale was the first school in the United States to flip completely — all of its classes are now taught this way. Now flipped classrooms are popping up all over. Havana High School outside of Peoria, Ill., is flipping, too, after the school superintendent visited Clintondale. The principal of Clintondale says that some 200 school officials have visited. ...
12. These Are The College Majors With The Smartest Students
13. First Children Are Smarter—but Why?
One mysterious finding—and seven theories
14. Top 5 Regrets of the Dying
- I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
- I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
- I wish that I had let myself be happier.
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