Millennial Edition

Why the brain forgets things on purpose, the ugliest fish in the world, and finding out how millennial you are. These discoveries and more after the jump.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies.

The links below open in a new window. Newer ones are on top.

A law professor at New York University faces trial in a French criminal court in June on libel charges, after refusing to purge an academic book review from a website affiliated with a law journal that he edits, Times Higher Education reports.

The Future of E-publishing Can Be Found in One of the World’s Oldest Books It hadn’t been a pleasant millennium so far for books….

Brain ‘Hears’ Sound of Silence While we think of silence as the absence of sound, the brain detects it nonetheless.

Obama Beats Record for Lowest Number of News Conferences President Obama, who pledged to establish the most open and transparent administration in history, on Monday surpasses his predecessor’s record for avoiding a full-fledged question-and-answer session with White House reporters in a formal press conference.

The Cost of the White House Health Plan Let’s look at what the president expects a family of four with an income of $66,000 to pay for health care.

From a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Dissent Last week the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied an en banc rehearing of the case United States v. Lemus, which dealt with a warrantless police search of a suspect’s home after he was arrested outside of it.

Iceland Proposal to Create Journalism Haven A potential change to journalism law in Iceland could greatly benefit investigative reporting, and sexual rights around the globe.

Dangers of Over-Zealous Intellectual Property Cops Worries about the poaching of intellectual property certainly didn’t start with illegal downloads of Lady Gaga.

In Learning, the Brain Forgets Things on Purpose Scientists have known that newly acquired, short-term memories are often fleeting. But a new study of flies suggests that that kind of forgetfulness doesn’t just happen.

No Banker Left Behind They do have a license to steal. There is no other way to read Tuesday’s report from the New York state comptroller that bonuses for Wall Street financiers rose 17 percent to $20.3 billion in 2009.

The Great Bipartisan Deception Some cancer is too aggressive even for chemotherapy. The U.S. political system is infected with such a disease, and we may be witnessing the first death spasms.

How Millennial Are You? Take our 14-item quiz and we’ll tell you how “Millennial” you are, on a scale from 0 to 100, by comparing your answers with those of respondents to a scientific nationwide survey.

Drive to Make Hollywood Obey the Laws of Science American professor Sidney ­Perkowitz’s proposals intended to curb film industry’s worst abuses.

Photoshop and Photography: When Is It Real? In the March issue of Popular Photography magazine, the editor’s note, by Miriam Leuchter, is called “What Is a Photograph?” You’d think that, after 73 years, a magazine called Popular Photography would have figured that out.

Move Over Blobfish, the Fangtooth Is Scarier The fangtooth has a face not even a mother could love. It makes the blobfish look like Disney’s next Nemo.

Ads That Don’t Work: French Smoking Ad and the Tim Tebow Anti-Choice Ad Revisited Just because an ad says something doesn’t mean that its message is going to get through.

Climate Change’s O.J. Simpson Moment “In early 2009,” writes Bill McKibben in a soon-to-be-published new book, “just as Obama was getting set to unveil his energy plans, word came that 2,340 lobbyists had registered to work on climate change on Capitol Hill (that’s about six per congressman), 85 percent of them devoted to slowing down progress.”

Is the Future Bright for Progressive Media? A new book highlights how progressive media has achieved more influence than ever before. But there’s still work to be done.