Dream Weaver
Are our dreams really vulnerable to manipulation? Click ahead for a reality check on these ideas and more in the world of dream research. (msnbc.com)

Accents Influence How Truthful People Sound
Researchers in Chicago have shown that people with a noticeable accent are considered less credible than those with no accent. The stronger the accent, the less credible the speaker. (Elizabeth Weise, USA Today)

More on China’s Religious Boom
The biggest boom of all has been in Christianity, which the government has struggled to control. One way it has tried to do that is by establishing government-sanctioned churches. (Louisa Lim, NPR)

Beauty Burden?
Few studies have examined the perils of beauty, or the upside of ordinary stock. But those that do offer some interesting reminders—above all, that beauty, like wealth, is both a blessing and a curse. (Tony Dokoupil, Newsweek)

Natural Selection in the Recent Past
In the last few years, biologists peering into the human genome sequences now available from around the world have found increasing evidence of natural selection at work in the last few thousand years, leading many to assume that human evolution is still in progress. (Nicholas Wade, The New York Times)

In Praise of the New Atheists
The Rev. Michael Dowd: The New Atheists, I suggest, are not enemies of religion; they are modern-day prophets. Prophets traditionally were those who chastised their people for having fallen out of sync with their time, with “God’s ways.” “Come into right relationship with Reality,” they warned, “or perish!” (Orlando Sentinel)

Violence as Entertainment
Violent sports, movies, and games enjoy popularity and profitability because of the excitement and “forbidden fruit” factor, say psychology experts. (Madison Park, CNN)

Billboard Battle
Deep in the heart of the Bible Belt, a dispute over God and country is being waged very publicly. (Dan Harris and Enjoli Francis, ABC News)

THEATER
Imagining Madoff
Two months after Elie Wiesel used legal threats to shut down a play that imagined his relationship with his former money manager, Bernard Madoff, that work—revised, with a new character replacing Wiesel—will have its first performances this week. (Patrick Healy, The New York Times)