Judge and jury
I once served on a jury and, to my surprise, was voted foreman. The accused was charged with manslaughter, a serious crime with quite a harsh penalty; while driving an aged-care minivan filled with pensioners, he’d hit and killed a pedestrian. The defendant was a facility volunteer who had been taking a group of pensioners shopping. His vehicle collided with the deceased in...
Spanish flu to COVID-19: Lessons from a forgotten pandemic
The Spanish flu filled graves in almost every cemetery in the world. However, surprisingly, this tragedy had largely been forgotten until recently. A century later, the issue returned to the centre of attention, with specialists wondering if they can identify a pattern in the evolution of the COVID-19 health crisis based on the pandemic from a century ago.
The need for control, between illusion and responsibility
As a child, I suffered because of the decisions the adults would make. At least, that's what I believed for a long time. It seemed unfair to me to not have veto power in the key moments that defined us as a family, and I was looking forward to the day when I would detach myself from the will of my elders.
2022: A new dawn?
When the ball dropped in New York’s Times Square on December 31, 2020, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief. The chapter had closed on what TIME magazine declared on its December 14 cover to be “The worst year ever”. 2021 was supposed to be a bright light at the end of the tunnel—potential treatments like the Astrazeneca vaccine promised to fight the Covid virus, the...
The biased sample: why science should not be practised on friends
The biased sample is a kind of unrepresentative sample, either for quantitative reasons (as is the case with the too-small sample), or for qualitative ones, when its structure does not represent the structure of the real population that is the object of the research.
From science to magic: the unpredictable journey of positive thinking
Over the years, the concept of positive thinking has proved to be extremely versatile and has managed to lure millions of people into the grip of powerful promises, convincing them that life can offer more than what they have been able to experience so far.
Mindfulness: Little Red Riding Hood does not live in the present moment
"It was dark inside the wolf." Like a chef who reinterprets a traditional dish for an expensive urban restaurant, writer Margaret Atwood proposed to the students of her masterclass a reinterpretation of the story "Little Red Riding Hood", in line with the most current tastes and attention skills: a Little Red Riding Hood that lives in the present moment.
The flat Earth theory in the Middle Ages
Atheists frequently invoke the theory that in the Middle Ages, Christians (not just lay people, but even church leaders) believed in the myth of the flat Earth.
Symptoms of a marriage that’s doomed for divorce
Behind the prelude to a divorce are four major destructive behaviours which can prevent the couple from keeping their enthusiastic promise of staying together ...for better or for worse, till death us do part.
COVID-19: Crisis prayer
A major crisis pushes us to re-evaluate the way we see and do things in the fields of health, finance, and social interaction. But how does this crisis affect our religious practices—especially the most common of these, prayer?
Fuel for health
Despite often being labelled as the main culprits for weight gain, carbohydrates are actually vital macronutrients, alongside proteins and fats. They provide the body with energy.
Vaping: a plague disguised as a revolution
In developed countries, where the public debate on tobacco consumption has been so widespread that even those who had no desire for it were educated on the negative effects of smoking, the prevalence of this toxic habit dropped so drastically that it caused trouble for cigarette manufacturers.
Against the current
Over the last few decades, the picture of family life has undergone dramatic changes. The pervasiveness and normalization of divorce are just two of these changes.
Celebrating transformative faith
I don’t remember ever doubting that, beyond the limits of the ensnaring, visible world, there is another reality that can only be accessed by those who speak the language of faith.
More than a brain in a jar
Michael Paterniti is the man who crossed America in 1997, carrying a jar containing Albert Einstein's brain in the trunk of a rented Buick. This journalist is not the only man who can brag about this memory, because riding shotgun was Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who had stolen the brain of the great physicist, in the hope that he would be able to...


























