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n the side of a mountain atop the frigid wastelands of the Norway's Svalbard archipelago sits the Arctic 'doomsday vault' - an ominous facility that's locked away close to a million seed samples from almost every country on Earth. Designed to keep the seeds safe from nuclear war or some other global catastrophe, the Svalbard Global Seed Bank just got a new neighbour, with a second doomsday vault opening up nearby. But instead of storing seeds, this vast library has been built to ensure the survival of the world's most important books, documents, and data.

Richard N. Bolles, a former Harvard physics major, Episcopal minister and career counselor whose own twisting vocational path led to his writing “What Color Is Your Parachute?” — the most popular job-hunter’s manual of the 1970s and beyond — died on Friday in San Ramon, Calif. He was 90... Mr. Bolles (pronounced bowls) originally self-published his manual in 1970 as a photocopied how-to booklet for unemployed Protestant ministers. In 1972, he recast it to appeal to a wider audience and found an independent publisher in Berkeley, Calif., willing to print small batches so that it could be frequently updated. Since...

Marvel’s vice president of sales has blamed declining comic-book sales on the studio’s efforts to increase diversity and female characters, saying that readers “were turning their noses up” at diversity and “didn’t want female characters out there”. Over recent years, Marvel has made efforts to include more diverse and more female characters, introducing new iterations of fan favourites including a female Thor; Riri Williams, a black teenager who took over the Iron Man storyline as Ironheart; Miles Morales, a biracial Spider-Man and Kamala Khan, a Muslim teenage girl who is the current Ms Marvel.

A survey of the best books that have come out of Hieronymus Bosch’s quincentenaryNo more than 25 paintings and a similar number of drawings can be reliably attributed to the Netherlandish artist known as Hieronymus Bosch, who lived from around 1450 to 1516. Yet his images inspired countless imitators and continue to haunt the Western imagination today. His “fantastic and capricious inventions”, as the Italian commentator Giorgio Vasari described them in the 16th century—his monstrous animals and plants, his compelling visualisations of human sinfulness—were without precedent in the history of European art. Bosch’s work has been commodified. It is difficult,...

On a trip to Lusaka, Zambia, last year, I kept chasing an energetic and jittery Chinese man, the only staff member of a Chinese mining company willing to talk to me after his firm had been involved in several scandals in which both Chinese and Zambian employees were either killed or injured on the job. Zambia, with its abundant copper ore deposits, is one of the most important investment destinations for China. His English was excellent, and he liked to talk — and talk. After telling me about how much he loved the country and its people, he sometimes went...

A New York author is hoping to grow the next generation of socially aware children with her upcoming board book for infants called Feminist Baby. The 22-page picture book, which hits shelves April 11, features a fearless and bold baby girl who unapologetically “lives how she wants and doesn’t let the patriarchy keep her down,” according to author Loryn Brantz, who hopes her character will inspire budding minds.

In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of “Word for the Day”. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EXPATIATE ex·pa·ti·ate ikˈspāSHēˌāt/ verb verb: expatiate; 3rd person present: expatiates; past tense: expatiated; past participle: expatiated; gerund or present participle: expatiating speak or write at length or in detail. "she expatiated on working-class novelists" synonyms: speak/write at length, go into detail, expound, dwell, dilate, expand, enlarge, elaborate; formal: perorate "he expatiated on the topic of volunteerism" Origin mid 16th century (in the sense ‘roam freely’): from Latin exspatiari ‘move beyond one's usual bounds,’...

In Part One of this article I analyzed the similarities of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy to Strauss & Howe’s Fourth Turning, trying to assess how Donald Trump’s ascension to power fits into the theories put forth by those authors. In Part Two of this article I compared and contrasted Donald Trump’s rise to power to the rise of The Mule in Asimov’s masterpiece. Unusually gifted individuals come along once in a lifetime to disrupt the plans of the existing social order. Despite the forlorn hope Donald Trump or some other savior can reverse our course, decades of missteps, dreadful decisions,...

One of the nation’s most outspoken conservative talk radio kingpins is now leading The New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction. “Trump’s War: His Battle for America” by Michael Savage is now at the top of the heap, besting new offerings from both former President George W. Bush and Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. This is the author’s 26th book; the new list was revealed Monday.

Students majoring in English at Harvard University will soon be required to take a diversity course featuring authors that have been “marginalized for historical reasons.” James Simpson, who chairs the English Department at Harvard, told Campus Reform that the requirement was created in response to a “very reflective” letter from a student, which argued that there was insufficient representation of racial minorities and women in the Harvard curriculum and proposed that the English department address this by instituting a diversity course requirement.

14-year-old on a mission to change perceptions about young ArabsA 14-year-old Emirati girl’s love for books has led her to write novels, a move she hopes will inspire other young Arabs to work towards reaching their full potential and changing the world’s perception of young Arabs’ capabilities. Aisha Al Naqbi’s first book Blue Moon was published in April last year when she was just 13 and she has just finished the draft for her second book and is well on her way to plotting her third novel. At first glance, Al Naqbi seems like every other teenager but it takes...

In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- svengali (plural svengalis) One who manipulates or controls another as by some mesmeric or sinister influence; especially a coach, mentor or industry mogul. Etymology: Named from the hypnotist character in George du Maurier's novel Trilby ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rules: Everyone must leave a post using the Word for the Day in a sentence. The sentence must, in some way, relate to the news of the day. Amuse me, entertain me, inform me, use a link...

"When you think about threats to democracy, threats to personal liberty, '1984' is one of those key texts that you refer to," said UCLA Film and Television Archive programmer Paul Malcolm. On April 4, independent theaters across the country will screen 1984, the dystopian drama based on the best-selling 1949 novel by British author George Orwell.

John F. Kennedy referred to Adolf Hitler as having “the stuff of which legends are made” in a diary entry written shortly after visiting Germany in 1945. Kennedy, then a fresh-faced 28-year-old, traveled to Hitler’s bomb-ravaged Bavarian Berghof residence and Eagle’s Nest mountain retreat during a tour of Germany while serving as a war correspondent for Hearst newspapers. And now excerpts from the diary, which were revealed by People Magazine, have shed light on just how the man who would become president thought about the genocidal German leader. “You can easily understand how that within a few years Hitler will...

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that anyone in want of attention could do worse than take possession of Jane Austen. We’ve already had Austen and zombies, Austen and game theory, Austen and guinea pigs. Now, a scholar has offered another spit-take-inducing pairing: Jane Austen and the alt-right.

You ever have one of those days when you can’t quite tell if something is satire or not? That’s what we’re going through right now. Normally you can check the source’s url—if it’s the Onion or some other funny-sounding publication, you can write it off as a joke and move on. But what happens when the source is the most prestigious university in the world? In case you missed it, the College’s Implementation Committee for the Policy on Membership in Single Gender Social Organizations (oh god we’re never writing that again) released its recommendations today. If you’re looking for a...

Vance announced in January, and details in a New York Times op-ed this week, his plan to transplant his native Californian wife and himself from Silicon Valley back to his home state of Ohio. They’ve picked Columbus as a desirable location (with a big enough airport) as Vance operates a new organization focused on combating opioid abuse in the state.