Scholars at Oxford University recently asked for help from the public in deciphering an ancient writing system. They plan to release high quality images of clay tablets covered in Proto-Elamite, a script used over 5000 years ago in what is now Iran. One reason the tablets have been so hard to decode is that they are full of mistakes, making it hard to find patterns. They hope that crowdsourcing will uncover some leads. In the meantime, here are 7 other scripts you might try your hand at deciphering. 1.... READ ON

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, spiritualism—a belief that the spirits of the dead can communicate with the living—was all the rage. There was no trendier activity than holding a séance led by a medium, who would mediate between the living and the dead. The medium not only delivered messages from the dearly departed, but also demonstrated the presence of spirits in the room by levitating objects, ringing bells, and producing a substance from her body known as ectoplasm. Those were... READ ON

In 1981, author Suzette Haden Elgin was working on a speech when she began to wonder why feminist science fiction always portrayed either matriarchy, where women were superior to men, or androgyny, where women were equal to men. What about another alternative, where women were simply different from men? Perhaps it was difficult to imagine such a possibility, she thought, because we lacked the language to express it. Over the next few years she developed Laádan and wrote her Native Tongue trilogy, in... READ ON

TV doesn’t get much respect. It rots your brain and grows couch potatoes. But the so-called idiot box also swings elections, rewires brains, snares criminals, and even sways the Supreme Court. The following may not be the best shows of the last 25 years—in fact, some are among the worst—but their impact reaches far beyond the living room. 1. Tropikanka: The Show That Won a Presidential Election As Russians were gearing up to go to the polls in July 1996, Boris Yeltsin was nervous about... READ ON