Video A cordial invitation to explore the science and history of flavor April 13, 2021 Nature, it has been said, invites us to eat by appetite and rewards by flavor. But what exactly are flavors? Why are some so pleasing while others are not? Read More
Essay To discover that which was believed lost April 13, 2021 I thought it was gone. I thought it had left me or I had left it somewhere in the street, in a cabinet, inside the grocery store, at the gas station. The arguments were depleting, had become idiotic, fantasy. Read More
Interview Book Club Pick: Timefulness April 12, 2021 This month鈥檚 Book Club Pick is Timefulness by Marcia Bjornerud, a terrific selection as we approach Earth Day. Few of us have any conception of the enormous timescales of our planet鈥檚 long history, and this narrow perspective underlies many of the environmental problems we are creating. Read More
Podcast The water crisis on the High Plains April 12, 2021 The Ogallala aquifer has nourished life on the American Great Plains for millennia. But less than a century of unsustainable irrigation farming has taxed much of the aquifer beyond repair. Read More
Video Breaking the Social Media Prism April 01, 2021 Breaking the Social Media Prism is a revealing look at how user behavior is powering deep social divisions online鈥攁nd how we might yet defeat political tribalism on social media. Read More
Interview Gary Saul Morson and Morton Schapiro on Minds Wide Shut March 31, 2021 Polarization may be pushing democracy to the breaking point. But few have explored the larger, interconnected forces that have set the stage for this crisis: namely, a rise in styles of thought, across a range of fields, that literary scholar Gary Saul Morson and economist Morton Schapiro call 鈥渇undamentalist.鈥� Read More
Essay The dark neuron problem, or mind reading at 90% accuracy March 30, 2021 I鈥檓 going to read your mind. Right now. Ready? Don鈥檛 get freaked out. Deep breath. Here we go鈥� Read More
Interview Marci Kwon on Enchantments: Joseph Cornell and American Modernism March 29, 2021 Joseph Cornell (1903鈥�1972) is best known for his exquisite and alluring box constructions, which transform found objects into enchanted worlds that blur the boundaries between fantasy and the commonplace. Read More
Essay A new vocabulary for social life March 27, 2021 What if we lived in a society where women had the power to make the world anew? What would life look like today if women played a definitive part in governance and had the resources to create sustainable lives? Read More
Podcast On Task: How Our Brain Gets Things Done March 24, 2021 Why is it hard to text and drive at the same time? How do you resist eating that extra piece of cake? Why does staring at a tax form feel mentally exhausting? Why can your child expertly fix the computer and yet still forget to put on a coat? Read More
Essay Nabokov: When playfulness is serious March 22, 2021 A rather common response to Nabokov has entailed complaints that he is altogether too cerebral or calculating a writer. Read More
Podcast Listen in: The Spike March 19, 2021 Traversing neuroscience鈥檚 expansive terrain, The Spike follows a single electrical response to illuminate how our extraordinary brains work. Start listening to chapter 1. Read More
Essay The hidden economic lives of women March 18, 2021 Women are everywhere in economic life, and nowhere very much in economic history. In Joseph Vernet鈥檚 great series of paintings of the 1750s and 1760s, the waterfronts of the ports of France are crowded with women pulling carts and selling fish, talking and bargaining. Read More
Essay Madame d鈥橝ulnoy, the mysterious fairy鈥憈ale queen March 17, 2021 For those readers who do not believe that fairies are real, they should think twice, for the extraordinary Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Comtesse d鈥橝ulnoy (1650鈥�1705) did not only invent the term fairy tale (conte de fees) and create tales about fairies, she was a fearless fairy herself. Read More
Podcast Dying from despair in the USA March 16, 2021 Life expectancy in the United States has recently fallen for three years in a row鈥攁 reversal not seen since 1918 or in any other wealthy nation in modern times. Read More
