Grumpy Old…Men?
Curmudgeons, you see, have standards. Sherlock Holmes could not abide being fooled, and Statler and Waldorf suffered no foolish puppets.
Science & Nature
Everything Addresses Us
“Tech is taking all the things you already disliked—triviality, noise, rudeness, interruption—and delivering them in a format you don’t have any control over.”
Secrets Are Buried in Our National Parks
The U.S. invented the national park—and ours hold mysteries of nature, of human eccentricity, of the past, of science and the supernatural....
What Well-Trained Women Can Learn from a Mischievous Pup
Willie knows exactly when to cuddle up or do the good-dog sit—and when he can get away with doing his own thing. But women never seem to get away with it for long.
Inefficiency Can Save You
Tiny, incapacitating acts of rebellion can keep you human. Or is this masochism?
The Ideological Brain
The best explanation yet for the maddening rigidity on the far right—and the far left.
Take This Sugar Pill and Call Me in the Morning
How much of a placebo's efficacy is in the brain, and how much in the heart?
Should AI Flatter or Play Devil’s Advocate?
The AI with the calm, reflective voice, encouraging us to think? They scrapped it for a fast-paced sycophant.
How We Learn the World
Why are we humans so impatient with any way of learning the world that is not our own?
How a Propaganda Campaign Killed Our Trust in Science and Government
Market fundamentalism’s propaganda gave us climate destruction, a housing crisis, the opioid scourge, a lousy pandemic response...and, ironically, Trump.