WAUKESHA, Wisconsin—Bold was the word of the day at Scott Walker’s formal announcement of his presidential campaign. Repeatedly the word was ladled over the sweltering supporters gathered in a local expo center that took on the close and aromatic aspect of a sweat lodge. Speaker after speaker testified to Walker’s boldness before he walked the runway to his place in the middle of the boisterous crowd. The candidate used the word a couple of times himself.
In 2001, a reporter for the New York Post came upon a secret corner of the Internet where teenagers conspired to starve themselves. In this “sick world of pro-anorexia Internet sites,” groups of girls lived by the “Thin Commandments,” worshipped the ribcage of Kate Moss, and cheered each other toward starvation. It had all the ingredients of a 21st-century moral panic: teenage girls using new technology to join supermodel-driven cults.
Tails in the animal kingdom are typically round: see monkeys, cats, and lizards, to name a few. Not so with the seahorse. To better understand the shape of the unique creature’s tail, scientists printed out 3-D replicas of both square and round tails … and then smashed them with a mallet.
The deal just struck by Iran, the United States, and five other world powers in Vienna is a major victory for U.S. national security. It shrinks Iran’s nuclear complex down to a token capability and wraps it in a permanent inspection and monitoring regime.
Emily Yoffe, aka Dear Prudence, is online weekly to chat live with readers. An edited transcript of the chat is below. (Sign up below to get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week. Read Prudie’s Slate columnshere. Send questions to Prudence at prudence@slate.com.)
For many, beach safety brings to mind sunscreen, umbrellas, water to keep hydrated throughout the day, and swimming ability. Idyllic settings and the lulling crash of ocean waves can easily dismiss concern for environmental pathogens, but it is important to learn and note the water quality at your coastal destination.
Reddit has an image problem and a user problem. After years of idealistically celebrating the site, the media, following the 2014 celebrity photo hack, now frequently portrays Reddit as a cesspool of hatein dire need of repair. Yet many of the site’s testy users are quick to rebel against any perceived intrusion on their autonomy and free speech. It appears impossible to address one problem without aggravating the other.
While astronomers and skywatchers around the world await data from the New Horizons flyby of Pluto, today also marks another historic moment for space exploration. Fifty years ago—from July 14 to July 15, 1965—the Mariner 4 spacecraft completed a successful flyby of Mars, sending back our first images another planet taken from deep space.
In the annals of nuclear arms control accords, the deal signed with Iran on Tuesday morning is a remarkably good deal. The 159-page document—titled “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action”—is more elaborate, detailed, and allows for more intrusive inspections than any Soviet-American arms treaty completed during the Cold War.
“I’m a farmer,” Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera told reporters the first time he was arrested in 1993. The second time he was caught, in 2014, he reportedly admitted to Mexican journalist Carlos Loret de Mola that he had killed 2,000 or 3,000 people.
By all accounts, flying is a more miserable experience than ever. Fares and delays have increased, legroom has decreased, things that used to be free—checked bags, movies, early boarding—are no longer free, and TSA’s security procedures are a demeaning farce.
In some ways Justice Anthony Kennedy has spent years chipping away at the death penalty. He has been a leader in the Supreme Court’s move to limit some classes of criminal defendants (for instance, juveniles) from being executed for their crimes. Keenly attuned to what the rest of the world thinks about capital punishment, he has been careful to confine the ways it is practiced in this country.
Here’s the thing to keep in mind about most critics of the Iran nuclear deal that was signed Tuesday morning: Their objections have nothing to do with the details of the deal.