All posts tagged: Sins

New Maurizio Cattelan Work is a Hotline for Confessing Sins

New Maurizio Cattelan Work is a Hotline for Confessing Sins

Published by José Betancourt

A new hotline inviting people to “confess their sins” is launching on Thursday, but it’s not backed by the Church. Instead, it’s the latest project by Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan, whose work often mixes religious imagery with controversy and dark humor. As reported by The Guardian, the phone line is going live just ahead of Easter as part of a wider project marking 21 years since the death of Pope John Paul II. Alongside it, Cattelan is releasing a limited run of small-scale replicas of his 1999 sculpture The Ninth Hour, the piece that infamously shows the late pope knocked to the ground by a meteorite. At the same time, people around the world are being invited to submit their confessions via a free phone number or WhatsApp. Some self-described “sinners” will then be chosen to appear in a livestream on April 23, when Cattelan will take on a symbolic, priest-like role and offer a form of “absolution.” Related Articles Cattelan, though, is keen to downplay the idea that he’s trying to shock anyone. …

The biological roots of the seven deadly sins might start in the womb

The biological roots of the seven deadly sins might start in the womb

Published by José Betancourt

PsyPost’s PodWatch highlights interesting clips from recent podcasts related to psychology and neuroscience. On Monday, February 9, the Huberman Lab podcast, hosted by Andrew Huberman, featuring Dr. Kathryn Paige Harden, explored the biological roots of human behavior. Harden is a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, known for her research on how genetic factors influence social outcomes. The episode focused on how DNA interacts with early brain development to shape complex traits like risk-taking, morality, and antisocial behavior. At roughly the 20-minute mark, Harden discusses the “seven deadly sins” through the lens of modern science. She explains that behaviors often labeled as sinful, such as aggression, addiction, and promiscuity, share a common genetic foundation. These traits are not located in a single brain area but are influenced by many genes that affect how the brain develops before birth. Harden notes that these genetic influences peak during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. They appear to regulate the balance between the brain’s inhibitory system, involving a chemical called GABA, and its …

Will Google Ever Have to Pay for Its Sins?

Will Google Ever Have to Pay for Its Sins?

Published by José Betancourt

If the story of journalism’s 21st-century decline were purely a tale of technological disruption—of print dinosaurs failing to adapt to the internet—that would be painful enough for those of us who believe in the importance of a robust free press. The truth hurts even more. Big Tech platforms didn’t just out-compete media organizations for the bulk of the advertising-revenue pie. They also cheated them out of much of what was left over, and got away with it. As someone who has written quite a bit about this dynamic over the years, I was interested to learn that The Atlantic filed an antitrust lawsuit yesterday accusing Google of illegally depriving the company of advertising revenue over the past decade. (The editorial team had no involvement in the decision, and I learned of details through public court filings.) Like similar cases filed by publications including Slate, Business Insider, and—just today—Vox, along with the publishers McClatchy and Advance, this one builds off of a federal judge’s ruling last year that Google had illegally established a monopoly in ad …