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As a kid, I saw the 1968 version of Planet of the Apes. As a future primatologist, I was mesmerized. Years later I discovered an anecdote about its filming: At lunchtime, the people playing chimps and those playing gorillas ate in separate groups. It’s been said, “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don’t.” In reality, there’s lots more of the former. And it can be vastly consequential when people are divided into Us and Them, ingroup and outgroup, “the people” (i.e., our kind) and the Others. The core of Us/Them-ing is

In a new book, University of North Carolina-Charlotte anthropologist Jonathan Marks says that racism in science is alive and well. This stands in sharp contrast to creationist thinking, Marks says, which is, like racism, decidedly evident in our society but most certainly not welcome in science. In Is Science Racist?, Marks writes: "If you espouse creationist ideas in science, you are branded as an ideologue, as a close-minded pseudo-scientist who is unable to adopt a modern perspective, and who consequently has no place in the community of scholars. But if you espouse racist ideas in science,

Unfulfilling Forty-one years before Maureen O’Connor dove into Pornhub’s user data for this issue’s cover story, Molly Haskell found herself in her local movie theater on 86th Street, two seats away from a man who was enthusiastically masturbating. Onscreen was an X-rated movie titled Inserts, which had made its way into conventional distribution channels. We’ve all read stories about the gradual mainstreaming of porn, but the early 1970s were really when it first happened: The explicit films Deep Throat and I Am Curious (Yellow) had survived legal challenges to their exhibition, and the old d

The world’s workers seem to be in a bad spot: A recent study found that each new industrial robot displaces six employees. Automation is on the rise in fields from radiology to volleyball coaching (page 50 of this special Jobs Issue). Workers in poorer manufacturing-reliant nations are especially vulnerable, it’s said, because their jobs could soon be done by robots. Yuval Noah Harari, author of the new book Homo Deus, speculates in a recent Bloomberg View column about the rise of a huge, embittered “useless class” living on the dole. But if work is being automated out of existence, how do yo

Out shopping for cleaning supplies at the local Target in a Seattle suburb last February, 55-year-old married mom Mary Kay Letourneau made small talk about the weather with Tanya Becker, an acquaintance whose children attended the same school as two of Letourneau’s daughters. “She was really well put together,” recalls Becker, 41. “She had a big smile, she seemed like she was very happy. Everything about her screamed ‘soccer mom.’ She was just so normal.” But little has ever been normal about Letourneau’s tumultuous life. The former elementary school teacher at Shorewood Elementary School in

Cardinal George Pell, an advisor to Pope Francis, has returned to his home country of Australia to face allegations of sex abuse in years past. Australia announced the charges against Pell late last month. Pell says he is innocent and promises to fight the charges. He has taken a leave of absence for the trial, but says he plans on returning to his powerful post in the Vatican. Pell, 76, landed in Sydney on Monday, The Associated Press reports. The wire service reports the cardinal "declined to comment" to press in Singapore, where he was changing planes; he avoided reporters entirely after la

Until 4:44, Jay-Z’s albums could be understood as an indictment of the immorality of capitalism by a man luxuriating in its fruits. Jay-Z argued that there was something revolutionary in this, in a black man born in the projects proving himself a better entrepreneur than white men born into plenty, as if to suggest the infinite human potential destroyed by the circumstances he escaped. He was right. Jay-Z used the terms of finance to describe the drug trade—referring to his crew as his “staff,” his organization as his “conglomerate,” smoothly transitioning from acknowledging the violence of th

AT THE CLOSE OF the last century, the New York City Police Department switched from full-metal-jacket bullets to hollow points. It was a move meant to spare lives—in theory, anyway: The old bullets had a tendency to pass through their targets and endanger bystanders, while hollow points expand after impact, inflicting greater damage to internal organs but also increasing the likelihood that the bullet will slow to a halt inside the body. And so, on February 2, 2012, when Officer Richard Haste shot 18-year-old Ramarley Graham—who was unarmed, standing in his own bathroom—the hollow-point bullet

While lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth culture continues to gain momentum in the spotlight, one group too often falls under the radar — aging LGBT people and LGBT caregivers. But advocacy for this community is more important now than ever. After all, there’s an estimated 1.5 million LGBT people 65 and over in the U.S., and this number is expected to double by 2030. Additionally, 9 percent of caregivers self-identify as LGBT, according to a 2015 report.  This group not only faces the universal emotional and physical pains that come with aging and caregiving, but often deal wi

Capitalism has brought opportunity to billions of people around the world and reduced poverty and disease on a monumental scale. Driving that progress have been advances in knowledge and technology that disrupt industries and create new ones. We celebrate market disruptions for the overall benefits they generate, but they also present challenges to workers whose skills are rendered obsolete. Today, as the age of automation affects more industries, those challenges are affecting more and more people. Attempting to slow the pace of technological change to preserve particular jobs is neither pos

Two years ago, in a testimony to the state of New Jersey, Benjamin Unger recounted how he was made to beat an effigy of his mother with a tennis racket. The action was part of a “treatment” meant to curb his attraction to men. According to Unger, a religious organization tasked with turning him straight told him that his close connection to his mother was the cause of his sexual orientation. He stopped speaking to her entirely. So-called “conversion therapy,” the practice of trying to change a person’s sexual orientation (almost always from gay or bisexual to straight), has a history of damagi

Last July, Gavin Long, a black, 29-year-old former Marine, ambushed police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, killing three officers and wounding three more before being killed. Now one of the wounded, who was rendered permanently disabled in the shooting, has filed a federal lawsuit against the Black Lives Matter movement and activists including DeRay Mckesson and Johnetta Elzie, whom he blames for inciting the attack. The unnamed police officers’ injuries were so grave, and so grievously unfair, that it’s not hard to understand this officer’s urge to hold someone accountable. But blaming Black Lives

Muslim activist Linda Sarsour is a common target for conservative media and right-wing activists. The latest charge against Sarsour follows a speech the Women’s March organizer delivered to the Islamic Society of North America convention in Chicago that was held from June 30 to July 3. Below is a transcript of part of her speech, which can be watched in full here: In her speech, Sarsour called on fellow Muslims to resist fascism, white nationalism and Islamophobia. She invoked a saying from Prophet Muhammad about the concept of “jihad” and its honorable form. But to those in the right-wing fa

A photo showing Ivanka Trump sitting in her father’s place at a Saturday G20 summit session sparked controversy over whether Trump — who just in June said she tries to “stay out of politics” — should have been representing the government of the United States of America in the working session of world leaders titled “Partnership With Africa, Migration and Health.” Or at all. Trump is no stranger to criticism over her involvement in her father’s administration, especially from women who expect more of the self-proclaimed women’s rights advocate. But according to David Bossie, President Donald

Three of the officers involved in the Chicago police cover-up of the fatal police shooting of Laquan McDonald pleaded not guilty to related charges on Monday. Former Chicago detective David March, former officer Joseph Walsh and suspended officer Thomas Gaffney all declared their innocence during their court appearances Monday morning, CBS Chicago reported. All three men were released from custody on $50,000 bonds. Judge Margaret Broznahan recused herself from the case Monday for unspecified reasons, NBC News Chicago reported. The trio of officers is accused of conspiring and lying about how a

Blac Chyna continues to move forward with legal action against former fiancé Rob Kardashian, who on Wednesday posted sexually explicit photos of Chyna on Instagram before deleting them. According to CNN, a judge has granted Chyna a temporary restraining order against Kardashian, requiring him to maintain a 100-yard distance from her at all times and forbidding him from posting anything about her online. Chyna is being represented by Lisa Bloom, the famous feminist attorney who has notably represented many of Bill O’Reilly and Bill Cosby’s accusers. When Chyna retained her services Thursday, Bl

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing President Trump's vote fraud commission, charging that the body isn't following federal law requiring it to be open to the public. The lawsuit joins a growing number concerning the commission that have been filed by civil liberties groups in recent days. It also comes as an email was sent by Vice President Mike Pence's office to states telling them to hold off on sending voter data requested last month. Although the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, led by Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, has held only an initial

A federal consumer watchdog agency has issued a new rule that will prevent credit card companies and banks from requiring customers to agree to settle disputes by arbitration rather than going to court. In a statement released Monday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explained: "Hundreds of millions of contracts for consumer financial products and services have included mandatory arbitration clauses. These clauses typically state that either the company or the consumer can require that disputes between them be resolved by privately appointed individuals (arbitrators) except for individ

The cholera outbreak in Yemen marked a grim milestone Monday, as the International Committee of the Red Cross announced there are now more than 300,000 suspected cases of the disease in the country. The epidemic has claimed more than 1,600 lives in roughly 10 weeks and "continues to spiral out of control," according to the agency. In late June, the World Health Organization declared the epidemic in the war-torn nation "the worst cholera outbreak in the world." At that point, the WHO placed the number of cases at more than 200,000. Robert Mardini, the Red Cross regional director for the Middle

Gonorrhea can also live in your throat. Pexels These days, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are pretty much a fact of life: the American Sexual Health Association reports that more than half of all people will have some kind of STI at some point in their lifetime. And thanks to frequently asymptomatic infections like herpes and HPV, many sex-havers carry on blissfully unaware of the things they've picked up from friends—especially since less than one third of physicians routinely screen their patients for such infections. So unless you've regularly gotten tested for everything since the

With Amazon buying high-end grocery chain Whole Foods, something retail analysts have known for years is now apparent to everyone: The online retailer is on a collision course with Walmart to try to be the predominant seller of pretty much everything you buy. Each one is trying to become more like the other — Walmart by investing heavily in its technology, Amazon by opening physical bookstores and now buying physical supermarkets. But this is more than a battle between two business titans. Their rivalry sheds light on the shifting economics of nearly every major industry, replete with winner-t

The Child Rescue Coalition has partnered with law enforcement and activists around the world to stop children from being sexually exploited. Now, they've got Blake Lively in their corner, too. The actress and mother of two is speaking up on behalf of the organization as they move forward on a quest to end child pornography. Lively met Carly Yoost, the CEO and Founder of Child Rescue Coalition, during an event where Yoost was named the 2016 L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth National Honoree. "We are grateful to Blake Lively... for raising awareness on the issues of human trafficking, sexual abuse, a

For some time now, various forces have been pushing us away from using paper money to pay for things. That goal may have a hidden bonus: Cash, it turns out, is crawling with bacteria. Although researchers have known for some time that microbes can, and do, live on money, a new study from Hong Kong shows that these bacterial communities are more substantial than previously suspected. Cash, it turns out, could be an excellent way to monitor the microbes circulating through a city. To examine the extent to which bacteria live on money, researchers from the University of Hong Kong collected 15 pa

Earlier this year, Nigerian Lieutenant Colonel T.J. Abdallah found himself under investigation by senior military officials. His offense: He criticized them on a WhatsApp messaging group. Describing them as “Nollywood actors” (Nigeria’s version of Hollywood), Abdallah said they had failed to provide his men with the weapons and equipment they needed to fight Boko Haram, the militant group that has waged an armed insurgency in Nigeria since 2009. But if the colonel’s criticisms are right, his men’s scarce resources are not for lack of military spending. The Nigerian government has been increas