If you’re familiar with the Burt’s Bees brand of lip balms and moisturizing lotions, you may be surprised to learn two things: The bearded man in the brand’s logo is a real guy named Burt (who was born Ingram Berg Shavitz) and despite its small-business image, the company is owned by the Clorox Corp...

The strange, disturbing world of Koko the gorilla and Kanzi the bonobo.

Lst week, people around the world mourned the death of beloved actor and comedian Robin Williams. According to the Gorilla Foundation in Woodside, California, we were not the only primates mourning. A press release from the foundation announced that Koko the gorilla—the main subject of its research on ape language ability, capable in sign language and a celebrity in her own right—“was quiet and looked very thoughtful” when she heard about Williams’ death, and later became “somber” as the news sank in. Williams, described in the press release as one of Koko’s “closest friends,” spent an afternoon with the gorilla in 2001...

Ask Randall White, the 72-year-old CEO of the Educational Development Corp., an Oklahoma-based book distributor, why he decided pull his company’s 2,000 titles — including the acclaimed potty bestiary “Everyone Poops” — from Amazon.com, and the longtime publishing executive makes reference not to a book but to a movie.

“Remember ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,’ when they’re on the cliff and getting ready to jump and one guy says, ‘I can’t swim?’” asks the folksy 72-year-old, referring to the classic Robert Redford-Paul Newman film. “And the other guy says, ‘What are you worried about? The fall’s going to kill you.’”...

Saudi Arabia's internal discord and tensions over ISIS can only be understood by grasping the inherent (and persisting) duality that lies at the core of the Kingdom's doctrinal makeup and its historical origins. One dominant strand to the Saudi identity pertains directly to Muhammad ibn ?Abd al-Wahhab (the founder of Wahhabism)...

The continuing right-wing effort to make a hero out of Michael Brown’s killer, Darren Wilson, may not turn out so well, if the past is any guide. Remember Cliven Bundy? Donald Sterling? George Zimmerman?...

What should a magazine company be now? The most storied one in America has to come up with an answer fast.

In the 92 years since Henry Luce co-founded Time Inc., there have been just seven journalists to hold the title of editor-in-chief. More people have walked on the moon than have sat in Luce’s custom Eames chair in his office on the 34th floor of the Time-Life Building. With wood paneling, private dressing rooms, and sweeping views of Rockefeller Center, the stately backdrop was an emblem of publishing’s glamour and power—Luce’s American Century brought to life. In fact, it was the Time-Life Building that the producers of Mad Men turned to when scouting period details for the offices at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce...

In the third wave...we buy coffee based on its origins, its process, its methods -- and its evangelists are out to get specific about what separates it from being a standard commodity...

A search for the fundraising phenomenon's cold, soaked patient zero.

That’s the question ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi seeks to answer in a long SportsCenter feature on the ice bucket challenge, which has reportedly raised more than $50 million for ALS charities in less than a month...

The mysterious Kennewick Man, who died 9,000 years ago in the Columbia River Valley, was a seal hunter who rambled far and wide with a projectile point lodged in his hip, five broken ribs that never healed properly, two small dents in his skull and a bum shoulder from the repetitive stress of throwing spears.

He came from somewhere far away, far up the Pacific Northwest coast, possibly Alaska or the Aleutian Islands. He might even have come to North America all the way from Asia...

A comic book is best stored in a place that’s “cool, dry and dark,” Adams says, with low exposure to oxygen. His Superman book was purchased off the newsstand in the ’30s by a man who kept it in a cedar chest at high altitude in the mountains of West Virginia, where it rested for decades until that owner himself was laid to rest...