Science & Technology

Out of His Element

In a new selection of John James Audubon’s oceangoing writings, we sense his obsessive quest to draw every bird he saw, even though he disliked being on the water.

August 18, 2022 issue

Annie Sparrow

Health Care Under Fire

The fight to protect medical and humanitarian workers is not new, but we are running out of time before it becomes futile.

June 23, 2022 issue

Laura Kolbe

Where Does It Hurt?

Three new books attempt to locate the origin of pain and its vocabulary.

June 23, 2022 issue

Ethan Zuckerman

Could Internet Culture Be Different?

Kevin Driscoll’s study of early Internet communities contains a vision for a less hostile and homogenous future of social networking.

June 9, 2022 issue

Gavin Francis

Intimate and Invasive

The prostate has caused difficulty for men and medicine for centuries. A new “biography of the prostate” examines the haunting terror it creates.

February 10, 2022 issue

M.W. Feldman and Jessica Riskin

Why Biology Is Not Destiny

In The Genetic Lottery, Kathryn Harden disguises her radically subjective view of biological essentialism as an objective fact.

April 21, 2022 issue

Mark Borrello and David Sepkoski

Ideology as Biology

E. O. Wilson corresponded for years with a notorious proponent of race science, advocating for his research behind the scenes. What does it tell us about his most controversial work?

February 5, 2022

Willa Glickman

Fruits of Empire

The plant explorers of the USDA succeeded in bringing the world’s fruits to American supermarkets. But at what human, ecological, and gustatory cost?

November 12, 2021

The Dark Web

Tom Scocca

How the Awful Stuff Won

Andrew Marantz’s and Megan Phelps-Roper’s books explore the dark and far-reaching consequences of our dependence on the Internet.

November 5, 2020 issue

A tweet by Donald Trump featuring an image of himself as Pepe the Frog, a symbol used by the far right, October 13, 2015

Hari Kunzru

For the Lulz

4chan, Gamergate, and how thwarted, angry young men have reshaped political discourse

March 26, 2020 issue

Claudia Dreifus, an interview with Ellen Pao

‘Social Media Reward Bad Behavior’

The former head of Reddit on how platforms like Facebook have amplified disinformation—and don’t want to stop—because attention equals profit.

October 26, 2020

The Latest

Sue Halpern

The Specter of Our Virtual Future

The metaverse opens up a new and seemingly infinite opportunity to extract data and sell ads.

October 20, 2022 issue

David S. Reynolds

Throngs of Unseen People

In the Houses of Their Despair, Terry Alford’s history of spiritualism during the Civil War era, suggests an unexpected link between the Lincoln family and that of John Wilkes Booth.

October 6, 2022 issue

Erin Maglaque

Rome Was His Laboratory

By the time of his death in 1729, the astronomer, historian, and archaeologist Francesco Bianchini had been an aide to three popes and confidant to one Polish princess and an exiled king.

October 6, 2022 issue

Jerome Groopman

Understanding Diabetes—and Paying for It

Advances in our knowledge of the causes of diabetes, and in our ability to treat the disease, have long been hampered by racial prejudice and exorbitant drug prices.

October 6, 2022 issue

Tim Flannery

It’s Not Easy Being Green

George Monbiot argues that none of the most rapidly spreading alternative farming methods can help save our food system from impending crisis.

September 22, 2022 issue

Gabriel Winslow-Yost

Exhausting All Possibilities

The video game The Stanley Parable is about what it means to be free in a tightly constrained simulated world.

August 18, 2022 issue

Verlyn Klinkenborg

The Forest’s-Eye View

Two new books investigate the ways in which deforestation affects climate change, and climate change affects forests.

July 21, 2022 issue

Daniel Immerwahr

Wielding Wheat

A new history makes a case for the world-ordering power of wheat.

July 21, 2022 issue

Ginia Bellafante

Mothers Under Pressure

The culture of contemporary child-rearing brings anxiety and guilt without relief. Does Emily Oster’s call for more relaxed parenting offer the solution?

June 9, 2022 issue