For the last four days, the World Science Festival—an eclectic and lustrous gathering of scientists, writers, artists, and celebrities—has descended on Manhattan, attracting thousands of participants to forums on science's newest, hottest findings...

Like any other high school junior, Wynn Haimer has a few holes in his academic game. Graphs and equations, for instance: He gets the idea, fine — one is a linear representation of the other — but making those conversions is often a headache. Or at least it was. For about a month now, Wynn, 17, has been practicing at home using an unusual online program that prompts him to match graphs to equations, dozens upon dozens of them, and fast, often before he has time to work out the correct answer...

My first job as a professor was at an Ivy League university. The students were happy to be taught, and we, their teachers, were happy to be teaching them. Whatever portion of their time and energy was being eaten up by social commitments—which may have been huge, but about which I was ignorant—they seemed earnestly and unproblematically engaged with the academic experience. If I was naïve about this, they were gracious enough not to disabuse me. None of us ever questioned the importance of what we were doing...

They don’t like identity politics and aren’t crazy about the word “feminist.” But a lot of conservative women here can’t help but rejoice that they may have a couple of tough-talking, tea-drinking mothers to choose from in the Republican primary...

The soldiers of the Army's famed 101st Airborne Division deployed to Afghanistan confident their counterinsurgency expertise would once again turn a surge strategy into a success but are headed home uncertain of lasting changes on the battlefield. As the division's 24,000 soldiers return to Fort Campbell from their one-year deployment, doubts remain in the military that security in Afghanistan can last without a significant U.S. military presence for years. The division brought effective counterinsurgency lessons from Iraq, but is still waiting to see whether those strategies can take hold in Afghanistan...

When Lucy gets married next week, she wants to walk down the aisle with flowers in her hair. 'I want to be a beautiful bride, a real lady,' she slurs. 'Just like Kate Middleton.' But there is nothing ladylike about Lucy tonight. Dressed as a French maid and waving a flashing plastic sex toy at me, she is reeling drunk. Instead of flowers in her hair, the young bride-to-be has tied condoms to her locks. 'I feel like a princess!' she says, before stumbling and falling flat on her face on a pavement already sticky with spilt booze...

Scientists have trapped and stored antihydrogen atoms for a record 16 minutes, a stunning technical feat that promises deeper insights into the mysteries of anti-matter...

When a group of activists proposed banning circumcision in San Francisco last fall, many people simply brushed them aside. Even in that liberal seaside city, it seemed implausible that thousands of people would support an effort to outlaw an ancient ritual that Jews and Muslims believe fulfills a commandment issued by God...

For more than 40 years, reformers and other agitators have tried in vain to cleanse India of corruption. They have staged demonstrations, candlelight vigils and protest marches for naught. In Parliament, efforts to create an independent anticorruption agency began in 1968. It still does not exist. Given this legacy of failure, an unexpected development is now stirring up the world’s largest and most raucous democracy: the agitators are on a hot streak. Government ministers are frantically trying to persuade one of India’s most popular gurus to call off a nationwide yoga rally against corruption — yes, a yoga protest — and a mass hunger strike, scheduled to begin Saturday. Already, the government has capitulated to the demands of another hunger-striking anticorruption crusader...