Wednesday 31 July 2019

Life is Tough


Human life is fragile but tardigrades and other extremophiles show that life itself is in little danger of disappearing.


The First Global City


High in the Andes, Potosí supplied the world with silver, and in return reaped goods and peoples from Burma to Baghdad.


This Tiny Traveling Bookstore Wanders the French Countryside


Its creator—and resident—brings literature to small towns whose booksellers have shuttered.


Monday 29 July 2019

Chasing Alexander Supertramp


Every year, fans of “Into the Wild” risk their lives to reach the bus where Christopher McCandless died.


The Martha Stewarting of Powerful Women


How society disproportionately demonizes women after they’ve bent the same rules that men have always broken.


The Unexpected Magic of Mushrooms

Normally associated with rot and decay, fungi may be a great overlooked resource that could help humanity deal with some of its greatest problems.


The ABC of Time


In our Universe, time seems to go from past to future, not in reverse. But what if time doesn’t even have a direction?


The Pursuit of Happiness

Why Epicurean ideas suit the challenges of modern secular life.


The Problem of Mindfulness


Mindfulness promotes itself as value-neutral but it is loaded with (troubling) assumptions about the self and the cosmos


The Brain-Eating Amoeba Is a Nearly Perfect Killer


The single-celled menace rarely infects humans. That’s what makes it so hard to treat.


Reading Lessons


You never stop learning how to read — probably because you also never stop forgetting how to read.