[Categories] > Society & Culture

Museums of Interesting Things (June 1, 2004)
Putting the muse back in museum

Eye Language (June 10, 2004)
Look what you're saying

Six Degrees of Separation (June 21, 2004)
Is it a small world after all?

Social Networking Systems (June 23, 2004)
Getting to know you, digitally

Global Energy Network (June 24, 2004)
World peace through sharing electrons

The Right-to-Quiet Movement (July 7, 2004)
Shouting down excess noise

Tiki (July 14, 2004)
The imaginary Polynesian culture

The Grolla (July 15, 2004)
Coffee, grappa, and friendship

Light Pollution (July 19, 2004)
Urban assault on the night sky

Lightsabres (July 20, 2004)
The myth and technology of the Jedi weapon

Muffin Tops (July 31, 2004)
Bottomless enjoyment

Twin Peaks (August 1, 2004)
Television's most successful coffee ad

Public Enrichment Project (August 7, 2004)
Fun and common sense for a better world

Mercury Retrograde (August 9, 2004)
The all-purpose astrological excuse

The Pluto Controversy (August 11, 2004)
Defining and counting planets

Missile Silo Homes (August 20, 2004)
Hole is where the heart is

Decimal Time (August 25, 2004)
Solutions for people who need 100 hours in a day

The French Meal-Payment Ritual (August 29, 2004)
Why you should always carry matches to a restaurant

The Truth About Bananas (August 30, 2004)
Fingering the world's most popular tropical fruit

Giving Away the Razor, Selling the Blades (September 2, 2004)
The curious strategy of loss-leader marketing

The Handshake (September 3, 2004)
Coming to grips with gestures of greeting

Revenge of the Analog Clock (September 4, 2004)
Time for a pie chart

The Klingon Language Institute (September 12, 2004)
The final frontier of linguistic scholarship

Pittsburghese (September 14, 2004)
America's most underappreciated dialect

The Globe Theatre (September 19, 2004)
Shakespeare's ideal venue, then and now

Propeller Beanies (September 23, 2004)
The story of the geek's icon

The S Curve (September 25, 2004)
What is wrong with success?

Piñatas (October 1, 2004)
History of a breakthrough

Fortune Cookies (October 3, 2004)
The authentic Japanese-American Chinese treat

Cochlear Implants (October 14, 2004)
The sound and the fury

___-of-the-Month Clubs (October 24, 2004)
Old marketing gimmicks never die

Rigo Artwork (October 25, 2004)
Painting by the numbers

Work Week and Vacation Variances (October 28, 2004)
Stress, rest, and productivity

Falling Back (October 30, 2004)
Time (for a) change

Charlie and His Orchestra (November 10, 2004)
Swing music as Nazi propaganda

Carfree Cities (November 19, 2004)
Revenge of the pedestrian

Donate-a-Click Programs (November 21, 2004)
The humane side of internet advertising

Paying It Forward (November 26, 2004)
Spreading the good deed meme

Bookcrossing (November 27, 2004)
Passing the book

The Color Purple (November 29, 2004)
Shades of royalty and mythology

Weblogs Revisited (December 5, 2004)
The phenomenon of public digital journals

Oxygen Bars (December 12, 2004)
I'll have an O…Make it a double.

Memetics (December 16, 2004)
The science of idea propagation

Urban Monorail Systems (December 18, 2004)
The rise of Personal Rapid Transit

English Female Social Titles (December 24, 2004)
Miss-ing the point

The Great Cork Debate (December 26, 2004)
Thinking outside the bottle

The Passglas (December 29, 2004)
Precision measure for drinking games

The Invention of the Wheel (December 30, 2004)
The best thing until sliced bread

Name Tags (January 12, 2005)
Hello, my name is Joe

The Skin Project (January 14, 2005)
Short story as body art

The Thinker (January 18, 2005)
The story behind Rodin's famous sculpture

The Legend of Deolinda Correa (January 26, 2005)
Unofficial saint of the desert

Groundhog Day (February 2, 2005)
The strange ritual of marmot meteorology

Lagniappe (February 12, 2005)
But wait, there's more!

Designer Pets (February 18, 2005)
The next frontier of genetic engineering

Legends of Tierra del Fuego (February 22, 2005)
The incredible shrinking southern continent

Extinction of the Yámana (February 24, 2005)
The end of the race at the end of the world

Cueva de las Manos (February 25, 2005)
Ancient spray-painted art in Patagonia

Slow Food (March 2, 2005)
Taking back the dinner table

The Stone Balls of Costa Rica (March 8, 2005)
Mystery spheres as lawn ornaments

The Oak Island Mystery (March 23, 2005)
Nova Scotia's notorious money pit

Kitty Genovese Syndrome (March 29, 2005)
The problem of the guilty bystander

Egocasting (April 1, 2005)
Personalized entertainment

Daylight Saving Time (April 2, 2005)
Springing forward, grudgingly

Raku (April 6, 2005)
Zen and the art of tea bowls

Fire Breathing (April 7, 2005)
Don't try this at home

Ball Lightning (April 9, 2005)
Unsatisfactorily identified flying objects

The Martini (April 11, 2005)
Why everything you know is wrong

The Toast (April 13, 2005)
Here's to the ritual of raised glasses

The Bavarian Purity Law (April 14, 2005)
Beer and tradition

English Spelling Reform (April 18, 2005)
The difficult path to simpler spelling

Dead Media (April 19, 2005)
Preserving past communication for the future

SETI (April 20, 2005)
The real-life quest to find E.T.

Mail Recovery Centers (April 21, 2005)
Undead letter offices

Safety Coffins (April 23, 2005)
The fact and fiction of dead ringers

The Crypt of Civilization (April 30, 2005)
Museum in a time capsule

House of the Future (May 3, 2005)
Disneyland's 1957 all-plastic house

The Story of Toilet Paper (May 7, 2005)
What goes around, comes around

Passenger Pigeons (May 13, 2005)
The great American extinction

InterPlay (May 17, 2005)
Getting grown-ups back into their bodies

Living Streets (May 18, 2005)
Using uncertainty to calm traffic

The Milgram Obedience Experiments (May 19, 2005)
Just following orders

Tableware Taboos (May 20, 2005)
Civilizing Mealtime

Optical Painters' Aids (May 21, 2005)
A matter of perspective

Coin Tossing (May 25, 2005)
Putting a new spin on randomness

Emperor Norton (May 26, 2005)
Monarch of San Francisco

Moleskine Notebooks (May 30, 2005)
The little black book strikes again

Quiet Parties (June 7, 2006)
Silent night out on the town

Cruise Ship Condos (June 30, 2006)
Making your home on the high seas

Radio Call Letters (July 10, 2006)
Minding your K's and W's

Viral Marketing (July 12, 2006)
Making a fortune with paperclips and pixels

E Clampus Vitus (August 2, 2006)
Brotherhood of the absurd

Gross National Happiness (August 21, 2006)
Bhutan's bottom line

The Marree Man (August 23, 2006)
Mystery artwork in the desert

The Dalahäst (September 25, 2006)
Symbol of Sweden

Vulcan, Alberta (October 30, 2006)
The town that's out of this world

Power Napping (November 1, 2006)
Siestas revisited

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (January 8, 2007)
Faith with a side of Parmesan

Proxemics (February 15, 2007)
The study of personal space

Entomophagy (February 21, 2007)
Insects as food

The Central - Mid-Levels Escalator (February 26, 2007)
Hong Kong's moving landmark

Nyepi (March 14, 2007)
Bali's day of silence

826 National (March 16, 2007)
Pirates, spies, superheroes, and young authors

Royal de Luxe (April 11, 2007)
The theater group with pull

Freecycling (May 7, 2007)
Finding your stuff a new home, painlessly

Shipping Container Architecture (May 21, 2007)
Ship-shape design

Hikaru Dorodango (August 1, 2007)
Mud balls as art

Paris Plages (August 6, 2007)
Bringing the beach to Paris

Planning Your Own Funeral (August 13, 2007)
Having the last laugh first

Complaints Choirs (January 14, 2008)
Setting the world's problems to music