The 14 3/4 Biggest Ideas of the Year
A guide to the intellectual trends that, for better or worse, are most shaping America right now
A guide to the intellectual trends that, for better or worse, are most shaping America right now
Private rail networks could save the housing industry, revive the economy, and help meet the booming demand for walkable neighborhoods. History offers plenty of encouragement.
How new wireless technology will shape the city of the future—and automate everything from parking to engineering to traffic flow
Immigrant artisans created an exuberant American art form on New York’s tenements at the turn of the 20th century. The only major public collection of their work now lies in a heap behind the Brooklyn Museum. Its odyssey reveals much about a changing city— and a changing culture.
After years of dieting, the author finally resorted to bariatric surgery. It worked—but he realized that it’s too expensive to stem our obesity epidemic. So what to do? Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity plan, he argues, is a major first step. Developed largely in secret, and with startling comprehensiveness, it has thrilled advocates— and made the food industry anxious to cooperate.
As the anthrax investigation intensified, the FBI focused increasingly on one suspect: Steven Hatfill. It began a campaign of harassment, intimidation, and 24-hour surveillance. Hatfill lost his job and his friends, fell into a spiral of depression, and found himself utterly isolated. But he was innocent—and here, for the first time, he speaks out.
His elderly father insisted that he could manage by himself. But he couldn’t. The author found himself utterly unprepared for one of life’s near certainties—the decline of a parent. Millions of middle-aged Americans, he discovered, are silently struggling to cope with a crisis that needs to be plucked from the realm of the personal and brought into full public view.
Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier.
Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily—this country has been built on cycles of crisis and renewal, and the forces that have made it great remain strong. But the government is broken. Securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke.
How one organization, drawing on two decades of observation and research, may have found the answer
George Noory, America’s most popular late- night radio host, chronicles our national anxieties, from Vampires and shadow people to the Bilderbergs.
For millions of followers, the prosperity gospel encouraged financial risk in the name of God.
The physicist’s first trip to the U.S. placed him at the center of contentious debates over Zionism.
Good intentions collide with dumb birds on a small farm in Pennsylvania.
Twenty-seven people with courageous ideas—from relocating endangered species to hiring autistics to printing loads of money—that are shaping our future. The first installment of an annual feature.
When Todd Hopson wanted to get Andres, the 9-year-old boy he'd raised from infancy, back from his biological father in Costa Rica, he called Gus Zamora, who retrieves internationally abducted children for a living. Here’s what happened next.
Chart: Where Yahoo's Tumblr Ranks Next to Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest
Eric Schmidt: Kim Jong Un Could Turn On North Korea's Internet if He Wanted
Will 'Digital Ethnic Cleansing' Be Part of the Internet's Future?
NASA Records an Explosion on the Moon So Bright You Could Have Seen It With Your Bare Eyes
This Is the Biggest Mistake 60-Year Old Men Make About the Economy
College Enrollment Is Falling Faster Than We Thought (Good News!)
A Simple Graph That Should Silence Austerians and Gold Bugs Forever
The Amazing David Beckham Goal That Sent England to the 2002 World Cup
Good News: The Arrested Development Season 4 Trailer Is Quite Funny