The H5N1 virus has now reached every continent on the planet. What does it mean for some of the world’s unique species?

Why did Joan Didion love Barry Goldwater but hate Ronald Reagan? Historian Sam Tanenhaus helps make sense of Didion's conservatism.

Mismanagement and political campaigning have sucked the joy out of an event meant to bring people together

In 2013, education reformers tried to help poor students the using the best tool at their disposal: The 16th most popular Ted Talk.Special thanks to Marcus Credé! Where to find us: Our PatreonOur merch!Peter's newsletterPeter's other podcast, 5-4Mike's other podcast, Maintenance PhaseSo...

A list of unheralded improvements to ordinary quality-of-life since the 1990s going beyond computers.

To HIV researchers, I am an ‘elite controller’ – someone whose immune system has enabled them to live for decades without symptoms or medication. I hope that one day science will understand this tiny but lucky minority

By Lee Vinsel

I'm reposting this essay I wrote in 2021 because the online blogging platform Medium has apparently changed its policies and people are having trouble accessing the original. Hopefully, I'll find a better, more durable solution soon. I'm reposting it unaltered, even though I would unsurprisingly do some

This blog post takes us back to 2010, retracing and incident where a statistical anomaly led to the discovery of a subtle flaw in the way we were using a security-critical library.

A blog series in which I reread LOTR 50 years after I first read it, age 10, over the winter of 1975-76. Pippin and Merry come as a double act (not exactly ‘dumb and dumber’, but not a million miles from that either) in the Jackson film version of LOTR, providing both light relief and…

I work in a sector that speaks out on racism and human rights, yet on this issue I have felt the boundaries of acceptable speech narrow around me