‘Colbert Report’: This Is How We Do It

Staff / Truthdig Oct 7, 2010 Faced with the happy prospect of describing what one MSNBC reporter could not -- the 41 combinations of sex that Americans are having, according to a new survey -- Stephen Colbert breaks it down with the help of his articulated friends Not Barbie and Samwise Gamgee. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Study: Older People Need Fewer Zzzs

Staff / Truthdig Feb 2, 2010 Here's another reason why baby boomers are still running various sectors of society: They need less sleep. According to a new study published, fittingly, in the journal Sleep, people in their 60s don't need to snooze for quite as long as their younger counterparts. This may partly explain why Jay Leno is still on the air. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Couch Potatoes Beware: Too Much Sitting Could Be Deadly

Staff / Truthdig Jan 13, 2010 An excessively sedentary lifestyle could spell heart disease or even cause premature death, according to a new study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, which gauged health (or issues therewith) according to the amount of time subjects spent sitting and watching television. However, TV isn't the decisive factor in the mix -- sitting for long stretches of time at work can also be hazardous to your health, the study found. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Norman Birnbaum on Susan Sontag

BLANK Mar 6, 2009 The publication of Sontag's early diaries provides a revelatory look at the self-inventions of the late writer. Dig deeper ( 6 Min. Read )

Bardot in Hot Water for Anti-Muslim Statements

Staff / Truthdig Apr 17, 2008 Erstwhile bombshell Brigitte Bardot is being tried on racism charges for her controversial stance against Muslims in France. She communicated her position last year to now-President Nicholas Sarkozy and publish her letter to Sarkozy in her own foundation's journal. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Study: Scientists Taking Brain-Boosting Drugs

Staff / Truthdig Apr 11, 2008 Call them the steroids of the scientific set: A British journal found that drugs like Ritalin and Provigil are popular among some scientists, mostly under 35, to enhance focus and ward off fatigue. A full 80 percent of the 1,258 respondents in the Nature survey believed "healthy humans" had the right to use performance-boosting drugs to give them an edge in their work. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Journal: Couric Likely to Leave CBS

Staff / Truthdig Apr 10, 2008 The Wall Street Journal is reporting that CBS News is likely to part ways with its evening news anchor, Katie Couric, who earns about $15 million a year. Consistently in last place among the networks, CBS has been under pressure to right the ship, and was even reported to have considered outsourcing some news operations to CNN. CBS says no such plan is in the works. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

So Much for the Motormouth Myth

Staff / Truthdig Jul 6, 2007 Finally, a gender-focused study that doesn't fall prey to the hidden gender biases of its research team (a phenomenon that occurs all too frequently in concordance with a little-known, but often operative, adjunct to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle). Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Why Danes Are So Happy

Staff / Truthdig Jan 23, 2007 Multiple studies have suggested that Danes are the happiest people on the planet, but an article in the medical journal bmj.com goes one step further and attempts to understand why. Most likely reason they're so satisfied: low expectations. (h/t boingboing.net) Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

The Fertility Gap

Staff / Truthdig Aug 23, 2006 Liberals will continue to lose ground in American politics as long as conservatives continue to outbreed them, argues a Syracus University professor in the Wall Street Journal. (The blue/red baby gap is much bigger than you'd imagine.) Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Meet the Moguls of New Media

Staff / Truthdig Jul 31, 2006 A guy delivering satiric "ninja" riffs in a $6 Lycra ski mask; a sultry woman with nearly 1 million "friends" on Myspace; a guy who has performed corny dancing shuffles in 38 countries What do all these people have in common? Absurdly low-budget, Internet-based origins and, now, high-budget traditional production deals Read about the new rules of the game . Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Stop the Presses! WSJ Flip-Flops on Iraq!

Staff / Truthdig Jul 16, 2006 After spending years blasting the idea that the U.S. is "bogged down" in Iraq, the Wall Street Journal editorial page did just that--saying that the Israel-Lebanon situation stems from a worldwide perception that America is so "bogged down" in Iraq that it can't flex any muscle in the Middle East. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )