Sophie Calle on oversharing, exploring death and the rules that govern her boundary-pushing practice.
No more Mendelism. “In the metaphorical language that has always saturated the science of inheritance, the genome may turn out to be less like a computer program and more like an organ of perception. This isn’t so much a nature versus nurture story as a complete rejection of all three parts of the opposition, including the ‘versus’. It’s much, much more complicated.”
Mathematical thinking isn’t what you think it is. Interview with mathematician David Bessis, author of Mathematica: A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity.
Patricia Lockwood on encounters with aliens.
Eating the Earth. The burgeoning global food trade is a lifeline for billions, but it is fragile and hard on the planet. Excellent article and amazing photo series.
Martha Nussbaum reports from the slaughterhouse.
Why do dogs shake themselves dry? Neuroscience has an answer. Because they’re wet?
Francis Williams gets his due.
Quanta Magazine’s review of the year in physics, mathematics, computer science and biology.
Why hasn’t the bird flu pandemic started? Some scientists examining mutations found in H5N1 viruses fear a major outbreak is imminent, but others say the pathogen remains unpredictable. One simple answer is that the virus may just need more time to hit the right combination of mutations.
Review of Bruce Nauman’s latest gallery show.
Guns across the border. Sobering book review annex essay about gun violence in Mexico. “It’s not advisable to drive straight through Mexico any more, even if you don’t stop.” It was once high on my bucket list, but not anymore.
The reference frames from which observers view quantum events can themselves have multiple possible locations at once — an insight with potentially major ramifications.
DNA from Pompeii body casts illuminates who victims were.
Flaubert’s L’Éducation sentimentale (1869) is rightly celebrated as a masterwork of literary realism, but it also, quite consistently, makes us wonder whether we know what realism is, or what else might be caught up in it.
Michael Chabon on Glenn Fleishman’s (forthcoming) history of the comic strip How Comics Are Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page.
The AI revolution is running out of data. What can researchers do?
Writers respond to the reelection of Donald Trump. And more here. There’s currently a lot of speculation about what a second Trump term will mean for the U.S. and the world at large. We’ll have to wait and see but his cabinet appointments don’t bode well. I still think of the U.S. as an amazing country with enormous potential. I deplore the polarization of recent years and the current age of resentment. I mean, Romney and Obama respectfully disagreed on various policy issues. Why is that no longer possible?