Science & Technology

Out of Savannastan

A new book provides convincing evidence that our earliest direct ancestors evolved in Europe, and that they were walking upright as early as six million years ago. But it is overly confident in its challenge to the idea that the genus Homo arose in Africa.

November 4, 2021 issue

Natalie Angier

Claw & Order

What do we owe nature, and how might we do a better job of coexisting with species that do not exist for our pleasure and sustenance?

November 4, 2021 issue

Sue Halpern

Weaponizing the Web

Nicole Perlroth’s investigation into the shadowy world of cyberweaponry predicts an unsettling future for global security.

April 8, 2021 issue

Jessica Riskin

When Engineers Were Humanists

During the Renaissance, mechanical inventions served as a medium for experimental thinking about all aspects of the cosmos.

March 11, 2021 issue

Elizabeth Kolbert

Chemical Warfare’s Home Front

Since World War I we’ve been solving problems with dangerous chemicals that introduce new problems.

February 11, 2021 issue

Lucy Jakub

The Oldest Forest

The promise and pitfalls of commercializing kelp.

December 17, 2020 issue

Alexandra D. Lahav

Medicine Is Made for Men

In medical research, drug regulation, and product design, the male body is too often considered as the default—which can have dangerous, even fatal, consequences for women.

February 11, 2021 issue

Michelle Nijhuis

Buzz Buzz Buzz

Humans have spent decades trying to teach other animals our languages, but we’ve made little effort to learn theirs.

August 20, 2020 issue

The Latest

Nathaniel Rich

Exhilarating Antihumanism

Joy Williams’s Harrow, a screwball fantasia of environmental collapse, is mercilessly contemptuous of the pieties of our age.

December 16, 2021 issue

Tim Flannery

Flies Like Us

Jonathan Balcombe’s Super Fly explores the immense world of flies.

December 16, 2021 issue

Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Inventing the Science of Race

In 1741, Bordeaux’s Royal Academy of Sciences held an essay contest searching for the origin of “blackness.” The results help us see how Enlightenment thinkers justified chattel slavery.

December 16, 2021 issue

Kwame Anthony Appiah

Digging for Utopia

In The Dawn of Everything David Graeber and David Wengrow search for historical examples of nonhierarchical societies to justify their anarchist vision of human freedom. But must we find our future in the past?

December 16, 2021 issue

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

John Gray

The Mind’s Body Problem

The belief that we’re different from other organisms may be an incurable human illusion.

December 2, 2021 issue

Leah Aronowsky

The Limits of Climate Change Litigation

For two decades, climate scientists have been developing tools to pin the blame for hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves on fossil fuel companies. But judges say climate change is too big for court.

November 3, 2021