Who’s More Famous Than Jesus?

An interactive catalog of fame, from Abraham to Zinedine Zidane.

13 Ways to Successfully Move Through Difficult Transitions

If you are having a hard time going through a transition, here are 13 ways to cool down the process and allow you to move on with less drama and more success.

25 life lessons by an old Greek shepherd

The road to the destination is never straight. To reach out to the winter shelter someone must take a lot of turns, travel along rough roads, suffer losses…You have to make sure that you always take food supplies with you.

The 10 most stunning islands in the world that we would all love to visit

It’s a hard task but the readers of Condé Nast Traveller have managed to pick their favourites and the results show the Balearic Islands have relinquished the top spot to make way for The Maldives. Remaining steadfastly at number two are the Greek Islands of the Aegean Sea. The ideal climate, safe waters and small distances between ports and coasts have made the Greek islands extremely popular amongst travellers.

Seven Things Extroverts Should Know About Introverts (and Vice Versa)

Some simple guidelines for friendship across the personality gap.

The lack of black faces in the crowds shows Brazil is no true rainbow nation

The World Cup was supposed to show Brazil’s cultural diversity. All it’s really exposed is the country’s deep-rooted prejudices.

Amazing Timelapse : Monolation

Created over the course of 2102 and stitched together from 17,000 individual photographs, Dunlap’s time-lapse video provides a window into  some of California’s most awe-inspiring vistas in places like Yosemite,  Lake Tahoe, Mono Lake and Simi Valley.

Almost half of the world’s food thrown away

Figures from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers show as much as 2bn tonnes of food never makes it on to a plate. 

Highlining across the face of the full moon

Adventure filmmaker Bryan Smith shot this remarkable clip of American free climber Dean Potter as he traverses a highline tied to Cathedral Peak in Yosemite National Park.

10 Images of Where Children Sleep Around the World

Children can really give us an insight into life around the world and their own private sanctuary (which is not always their own as you will see) gives an even deeper look at how they live. The idea of where children sleep seems innocuous at first, but on closer inspection these images reveal incredible stories of courage, despair, and – for the lucky few – joy. The source of this list is an incredible book which is called “Where Children Sleep” and the author (and photographer and copyright holder of all the pictures found here) is James Mollison. 

The Unspeakable Truth About Rape in India

   by Sonia Faleiro, the author of “Beautiful Thing: Inside the Secret World of Bombay’s Dance Bars.”

I LIVED for 24 years in New Delhi, a city where sexual harassment is as regular as mealtime. Every day, somewhere in the city, it crosses the line into rape. As a teenager, I learned to protect myself. I never stood alone if I could help it, and I walked quickly, crossing my arms over my chest, refusing to make eye contact or smile. I cleaved through crowds shoulder-first, and avoided leaving the house after dark except in a private car. At an age when young women elsewhere were experimenting with daring new looks, I wore clothes that were two sizes too large. I still cannot dress attractively without feeling that I am endangering myself. 

Five Great Speeches In Modern History

Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Harvey Milk, Martin Luther King. 

Best pictures of week (no25)

How Japan Lost Its Electronics Crown

Sony, Sharp and Panasonic Fixated on Hardware Breakthroughs; ‘Sometimes, It’s Easier to Run From Behind. 

Jobs of the future

As technology shifts the workforce, some surprisingly traditional jobs are on the chopping block. 

Do sad songs make us feel better?

Adam Brent Houghtaling, a New York-based author, should be in quite a sour mood by now. After all, he spent months listening to the saddest music ever made, from sorrowful symphonies to tearjerker Billie Holliday tunes to just about every Leonard Cohen song ever. 

8 Things The iPhone 5 Still Can’t Do

In terms of specs, performance, and features, the iPhone 5 is Apple’s best to date.  This doesn’t mean it’s as good as it could be, however. There were a few egregious omissions from the keynote presentation – features that we not only want in our iPhone, but that we feel are overdue. 

Best pictures of week (no24)

Golden Years Truly Are Golden

It doesn’t matter whether you’re employed, whether your children still live at home, or even whether you’re married. Life gets better after age 50. A new phone survey of hundreds of thousands of Americans confirms that people tend to be happier, less anxious, and less worried once they pass the half-century mark. 

Three (Incredibly Simple) Questions The Most Successful People Use To Change The World

I’ve heard it said that the most brilliant business ideas are often the simplest. From my experience, it’s true. In fact, when I am fortunate enough to receive sage advice from a famously gifted person, I’ll often ask myself, “Why didn’t I think of that?” So here I humbly share with you a winning formula that I see leaders use again and again and again…to change the world. 

Best Earth Footage

Climate change over the next 50 years is expected to drive a quarter of land animals and plants into extinction, according to the first comprehensive study into the effect of higher temperatures on the natural world.

Best pictures of week (no23)

Understanding gambling addiction

Odds are that you imagine gamblers as people simply trying to get lucky and win a big payoff. But when Natasha Schull, an associate professor in MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society (STS), began researching the lives of gamblers in Las Vegas, she found a very different motivation at work. 

How To Forgive, And Why You Should

The deepest wounds feel like they’ll last a lifetime: The absent mother who robbed you of the mother-daughter bond you craved and deserved. The eighth-grade bully who turned the classroom into a living nightmare. The boyfriend who broke his promises and chose her instead. 

Is There Something Wrong With People Who Do Not Use Facebook?

Recent news stories have suggested that employers may be reluctant to hire people without a Facebook profile on the grounds that Facebook usage has become so common that not having an account is seen as somehow abnormal. This concern appears to have been compounded by a lurid report in a German newspaper that alleged mass killers James Holmes and Anders Behring Breivik did not have Facebook accounts, leading to the rather hysterical conclusion that not having an account “could be the first sign that you are a mass murderer.” 

How Long Do You Want to Live?

SINCE 1900, the life expectancy of Americans has jumped to just shy of 80 from 47 years. This surge comes mostly from improved hygiene and nutrition, but also from new discoveries and interventions: everything from antibiotics and heart bypass surgeryto cancer drugs that target and neutralize the impact of specific genetic mutations. 

‘Legitimate rape’ – a medieval medical concept

The idea that rape victims cannot get pregnant is a very old medical theory. 

Best pictures of week (no22)

Last words of Texas death row inmates: a kind of gallows poetry

Texas executed a man with an IQ of 61 last week for murdering a 21-year-old police drug informant in 1992. Lawyers for Marvin Wilson, 54, had battled his execution for years, building a mountain of appeals that Texas prosecutors demolished again and again until the executioner finally strapped him down. There, Wilson uttered his last words on Earth: 

9 Things That Motivate Employees More Than Money

Don’t show ’em the money (even if you have it). Here are nine better ways to boost morale. 

The Accidental History of the @ Symbol

Once a rarely used key on the typewriter, the graceful character has become the very symbol of modern electronic communication. 

Will we ever… find life elsewhere in the universe?

The idea of aliens may seem absurd. But times change, as does science, says Phil Plait, and this makes the idea far more plausible than it once appeared. 

Portraits of Classrooms Around the World

Since 2004, Julian Germain has been capturing the inner lives of schools around the world, from England to Nigeria to Qatar, in his large-scale photographs of schoolchildren in class. the book Classroom Portraits revealed through more than 450 portraits of schoolchildren from 20 countries. 

Best pictures of week

A history of exchange-rate regimes

The international monetary system has come a long way over the last 200 years. It’s experienced a pretty tumultuous history along the way, including the rise of central banks, world wars, and ad-hoc exchange rate mechanisms that have all shaped the system we have today.

The ultimate TV dinner

Can you survive four weeks eating only food advertised on TV? 

Harvard cracks DNA storage, crams 700 terabytes of data into a single gram

A bioengineer and geneticist at Harvard’s Wyss Institute have successfully stored 5.5 petabits of data — around 700 terabytes — in a single gram of DNA, smashing the previous DNA data density record by a thousand times. 

5 friends pose for the same picture every 5 years for 30 years

Five friends from Santa Barbara, California go on vacation every 5 years to the same place to take the same group photo and they have been doing it since 1982. They started as teenagers when they were just 19 years old. In 2012, at age 48, they have taken their 7th photo, 30 years after it began. They visit the same lake. They stay in the same cabin. They sit on the same bench. They sit in the same order. They make the same pose. They even make the same facial expressions. And, starting five years ago, some of them began wearing the same clothes.

Why I am always unlucky but you are always careless

From lost keys to failed interviews, we blame other people for their mishaps but never ourselves when we do the same. Why? Because assuming causes helps us to make sense of the world. 

Why French Parents Are Superior

While Americans fret over modern parenthood, the French are raising happy, well-behaved children without all the anxiety. Pamela Druckerman on the Gallic secrets for avoiding tantrums, teaching patience and saying ‘non’ with authority.