The Conversation
Responses and reverberations
Features
What If We Never Run Out of Oil?
New technology and a little-known energy source suggest that fossil fuels may not be finite. This would be a miracle—and a nightmare.
Debate: Experts grapple with the possibility of infinite oil, and what it would mean for our climate.
Learning to Live With Fossil Fuels
We can't address climate change without carbon reduction, but we also can't afford to neglect a vital second option: carbon capture.
How Not to Die
Angelo Volandes's low-tech, high-empathy plan to revolutionize end-of-life care
In Defense of Henry Kissinger
He was the 20th century's greatest 19th-century statesman.
The Critics
A short story
Dispatches
Karen vs. Kevin: The Persistence of Pro-Male Gender Bias
A glance at five academic studies
How to Tell a Joke on the Internet
The new typography of irony
What Americans Should Understand About Japan's 1990s Economic Bust
The slacker trap
What Makes Us Happy, Revisited
A new look at the famous Harvard study of what makes people thrive
Problem: My Neighbor Is Having Shockingly Loud Sex All the Time
Try blasting recordings of chimpanzees. Our advice columnist to the rescue.
How Do You Celebrate the Birthday of a Great Composer Who Inspired Hitler?
Germany grapples with the bicentennial of Richard Wagner's birth.
How New York Is Reinventing the Phone Booth
An urban renaissance for public telephones
The Atheist Who Strangled Me
In which Sam Harris teaches me Brazilian jiu-jitsu and explains why violence is like rebirth
Interview: Graeme Wood and Sam Harris talk about non-belief and knife fights.
A Thousand Years of Sex Talk in Arab Culture—in 1 Paragraph
Language doesn't necessarily get less prudish over time.
Do We Change Our Minds on Abortion When It Affects Us Directly?
Three suggestive stats
Various Ways You Might Accidentally Get Drunk
We don't always know when we're standing over a large deposit of iron ore.
The Hordes of Microbes Inside Your Body Are Your Friends
An interview with the synthetic biologist Christina Agapakis
The Millennial Stimulus Plan
How young people will supercharge the recovery
Culture File
The Hair-Metal Diaries
In a new memoir, the lead singer of Ratt remembers what may be the most forgettable cultural phenomenon of the modern era.
The Love Life and Cultural Influence of Martin Amis
On the new biography of a literary Lothario
Bringing Back the Ancient Art of Spearfishing
An old extreme sport is new again.
Can a Tuning Fork Improve Your Cocktail?
The theory and practice of serving a drink vibrated, not stirred
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