The Internet Turf War

At the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai, governments are trying to get their hands and handcuffs on the Internet; some scientists have posited that homosexuals inherit the trait from their opposite-sex parent; meanwhile, Italy’s disgraced Silvio Berlusconi prepares to run again. These discoveries and more below.

On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that have 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.

Why the world is arguing over who runs the internet Who runs the internet? For the past 30 years, pretty much no one.

Ebooks may yet save hardback books Why condemn populist ebooks when they sit so comfortably alongside the ‘elite’ of high quality hardbacks?

The Benefits of Bonding with a Musical Instrument Scandinavian researchers report musicians who feel united with their instrument feel less performance anxiety.

Perverse incentives? As the number of people who fall below the poverty line continues to increase, the attempts to blame the poor (and government programs to help the poor) also grow.

Seeing God in the Third Millenium There are many carefully documented accounts in the medical literature of intense, life-altering religious experience in epileptic seizures.

The Seven Countries Where You Can Be Put To Death for Being an Atheist A new report from the International Humanist and Ethical Union names the seven countries in which atheists can be executed for their beliefs: Afghanistan, Iran, Maldives, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan.

3D-Printing Archaeologists Fix Ancient Artifacts Greene and Aja work at Harvard University’s Semitic Museum, using 3-D printers and 3-D scanning software to recreate a ceramic lion that was smashed 3,000 years ago when Assyrians attacked the ancient Mesopotamian city of Nuzi, located in modern day Iraq.

How Do Millennials Like to Read the News? Very Much Like Their Grandparents In the eyes of employers, marketers, and brand gurus, Generation Y tends to be treated like a separate species, forged in the primordial stew of Internet, whose habits are so positively alien to the rest of the country that they’ve inspired a cottage industry: The How-Do-You-Solve-a-Problem-Like-Millennials? genre.

Scientists May Have Finally Unlocked Puzzle of Why People Are Gay Has the riddle of human sexuality finally been cracked?

Has Silvio Berlusconi Ruined Italy Forever? What to make of the possibility that Italy’s disgraced and discredited former leader Silvio Berlusconi has announced he will undertake his sixth election campaign in hopes of becoming prime minister for a fourth time?

The GOP’s Immigration Jam Think Republicans feel in a jam about raising taxes? Wait until President Barack Obama springs comprehensive immigration reform on them early next year.

Gay Rights Gets a Brown v. Board—If It Doesn’t Backfire The Supreme Court has announced it will look at two gay marriage cases.

How Older Parenthood Will Upend American Society Over the past half century, parenthood has undergone a change so simple yet so profound we are only beginning to grasp the enormity of its implications.

Let’s make Obama regret his war on weed The president’s Justice Department won’t let Washington and Colorado smoke up in peace. Can we change his mind?