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The Golden Age of Online Music Is Over (and Another Is Beginning)
It might just be the platonic ideal of music listening: hear any song of your choice instantaneously, whenever and wherever, without having to pay for individual tracks. For the past five years,...
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'What Was It Like Before Electricity, Daddy?'
Back in 1982, The Atlantic published what I believe was the first article in a non-tech magazine about the implications of the then-dawning personal computer age. As it happened, the article was by me,...
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The Next Manhattan Project
In January 2012, a team of researchers from the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin published a paper in the journal Science about airborne transmission of H5N1 influenza, or bird flu, in...
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He Said, She Said: How Uber Relied on Data in an Assault Dispute
On Friday night, a group of twenty-somethings took an Uber ride to a party in Houston. Something about the man driving the car seemed off from the beginning. "The drive was a bit odd," said Stephanie,...
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The Brontosaurus Would Like to Know: What Is a Species, Really?
In 1989, the U.S. Postal Service released a collection of 25-cent commemorative postage stamps celebrating a series of dinosaurs. The stamps featured the tyrannosaurus, and the stegosaurus, and the...
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Same Surveillance State, Different War
It's been a long 22 months since the first of thousands of classified government documents became public in what has turned into a drumbeat of astonishing revelations about the scope of mass...
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The Courage of Bystanders Who Press 'Record'
On October 14, 2007, a middle-aged man was growing irate at the arrivals terminal of the Vancouver International Airport. Robert Dziekanski had been stuck in the airport for 10 hours with a visa...
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The Godmother of American Medicine
A warning from Edward Clarke, M.D., a professor at Harvard: "There have been instances, and I have seen such, of females... graduated from school or college excellent scholars, but with undeveloped...
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The Secret Life of Yo-Yos
The man behind me in the queue was trying to be helpful: “It’s true, though, right? They are used as weapons in Asia. I go there a lot and I’ve seen them do it—they’re lethal.” He made a sudden...
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What Would a World Without Language Barriers Look Like?
My dad has a story he likes to tell about one of his friends, a scientist. The scientist was giving a lecture in Japan, and opened with a joke that lasted a couple minutes. After delivering the joke in...
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The Quantified Baby
During my pregnancy, the birth of my son, and the early months of parenthood, technology has been there to mediate every step of the way. I often wonder, as I spend time with my baby, my phone always...
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The Truth About Black Twitter
Black Twitter is a force. It’s also not particularly well understood by those who aren’t a part of it. The term is used to describe a large network of black Twitter users and their loosely coordinated...
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Be Careful What You Google
Google is a modern oracle, and a miraculous one at that. It can lead you to the Perfect Strangers theme song lyrics, or to a satellite image of your childhood neighborhood, or to a blueprint for...
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How to Say ‘Yes’ (by Not Saying ‘Yes’)
When was the last time you said “yes”? Not in the figurative way—consenting to a request, acknowledging something delightful, embracing a generally optimistic outlook toward the world—but in the...
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The Trouble With Unpublishing the News
Once upon a time, not very long ago, publishing was a massive, visceral operation. It required buckets of ink, reams of paper, and mammoth machines that clanked and roared and churned. To stop the...
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The Argument Economy
Earlier this month, following news that Joni Mitchell had collapsed and been hospitalized, Time magazine published, on its website, a lengthy appreciation of the legendary singer-songwriter. The...
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Belgian Bacon Pudding and Other Recipes Invented by a Robot
An Austrian chocolate burrito—like most burritos—contains ground beef, tortilla, and cheese. It also—unlike most burritos—contains chocolate, as the name suggests, but also apricot puree and edamame...
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The Wearable Device That Could Unlock a New Human Sense
In March, the neuroscientist David Eagleman stood on stage to give a TED talk on sensory substitution, the idea of replacing the duties of one sense by using another. He spoke of how little of the...
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Space Coffee: Astronauts Are Getting a Fancy New Espresso Machine
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) get 15 or 16 sunrises per day, but, for a long time, they didn’t get to wake up and smell the coffee. That’s because coffee is distributed and...
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India's Prime Minister Is Addicted to His iPad Too
Narendra Modi is an early riser. He is awake before dawn and soon ready for the yoga and meditation routines that help prepare him mentally, physically, and spiritually for the day ahead. Before he...
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