Brain Candy

U.S. executives are pulling out of an investment conference scheduled to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, next week — as controversy swirls around the disappearance of a missing Saudi journalist.

Brett Hennig says democracy — and the process of voting — is broken. To fix it, he has a radical suggestion: replacing politicians with a demographically representative selection of random citizens.

Often, people who don't understand the law or can't pay for lawyers end up being mistreated. Lawyer Vivek Maru calls for a global community of paralegals to place the law on the side of the people.

Animals like chimpanzees are autonomous beings with rich emotional lives, says animal rights lawyer Steven Wise. He's working to get courts to recognize them as "legal persons" and grant them rights.

The bail system disproportionately impacts low-income people of color and pressures defendants into pleading guilty. But Robin Steinberg is implementing a plan to fix this--without waiting for reform.

When we look around, it feels like we're seeing an objective reality. But neuroscientist Anil Seth says everything we perceive, from objects to emotions, is an act of informed guesswork by the brain.

In 2009, Drew Philp bought an abandoned house in Detroit and worked with neighbors to fix it up. He discovered the power of 'radical neighborliness' to rebuild his struggling neighborhood.

As Albuquerque's mayor, Richard Berry tried a new approach to addressing panhandling: offering work and connecting homeless with city services. He says it's a more humane option more cities can try.

OluTimehin Adegbeye says that in the world's megacities, the most vulnerable get left behind — including in her city, Lagos. But it's these people, she says, that most deserve space in modern cities.

Architect Liz Ogbu has seen the pain gentrification creates for displaced communities. She wonders how we can create ways for longtime residents to stay and reap the benefits of gentrification.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins have identified a brain region in monkeys that influences their desire to take big risks. When this area is inactivated, the monkeys tend to hedge their bets.

The scientists were inspired by the super-agile fruit fly. And by designing this robot, they've figured out some of the mysteries of one of the fly's fanciest maneuvers.