I used to think M.T. Anderson was prescient. Now I’m convinced he’s psychic. Anderson is the author of the young-adult novel Feed, a very funny — and deeply disturbing — book about the seductive power of social media. In the world of the novel, the fortunate have a “feed” implanted in their brains at birth, […]
Month: May 2013
About ten years ago, doing research for a book, I asked Freeman Dyson about a study he’d helped do about whether we would have lost the war in Vietnam a little less if we’d used tactical nuclear weapons. Dyson and two colleagues, all members of a scientific advisory group called Jason, were doing this study […]
“In the 1960s we noticed there was a problem with time,” says Witold Fraczek, an analyst at Environmental Systems Research Institute in Greater Los Angeles. In 1948 Harold Lyons at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C. built the world’s first atomic clock, an instrument that keeps time based on the vibration of atoms […]
Last year, I reported a story about sharks disappearing in the Sea of Cortez. The story deals with one little spot near the bottom of the Baja Peninsula called El Bajo. El Bajo is famous for two things, I suppose. One, it’s the site where scientists discovered a now-famous behavior in which hammerhead sharks from […]
It’s early morning in a Mumbai train station. The video is grainy, but you can clearly make out a dense swarm of humanity along the platform. By my count, the crowd stands at least ten or twelve people deep, males for the most part, many dressed in light short-sleeved shirts, the kind you’d wear in […]
May 20 – 24 Paleo-BS or solid science? This week, Cassie investigated the new obsession with intermittent fasting. Cameron examined the void that lurks on the far side of achievement. Christie revealed some of the most surprising and least expected effects of guns. Heather told us how experimental archaeology is helping answer the question of […]
“Did they ever meet?” I got the question all the time. People would ask what I was working on, and I would say a book about Einstein and Freud, and then would come the question. Same thing with my next book. People would ask what I was working on, and I would say a book […]
I did a big run on Saturday morning. On Saturday afternoon, I stuffed my face, had a welcome beer after a training dry spell, and felt glorious. Sunday morning I spent in bed, reading the New York Times in a puddle of pure contentment. Sunday night, I went to an epic dinner and felt the […]