What's the Most Dangerous Food of All Time?
Surveying the whole scope of human history vis-à-vis food, a couple of themes emerge. One is that humans like their…
What Happens When Two Black Holes Collide?
On September 14, 2015, signals from one of the Universe’s most mind-boggling, powerful events produced the tiniest…
How Fantastic Beasts Failed at Representation, and What J.K. Rowling Can Do About It
I come not to bury J.K. Rowling, but to praise her. Harry Potter was an honest to god phenomenon, impacting my…
These Men Ate Poison So You Could Have the FDA
If you sat down to eat at any point and in any part of the U.S. in the 1800s, nothing on your plate was quite what it…
How the Universe Ends
Somewhere between a second and a millennium from now, you will die. Your body and all of its parts will cease…
100 Websites That Shaped the Internet as We Know It
The World Wide Web is officially old enough for us judge what it’s produced. That’s right, it’s time for the world to…
Is Breakfast Cereal Any Good for You?
Wrangle up the right studies and you can make anything look deadly. Breakfast cereal—at least, the kind without cartoon…
Meet the Nuclear Weapons Nerds
John Coster-Mullen was driving his truck to a warehouse in Oshkosh, Wisconsin when he told me that he owns uranium.…
What Will Quantum Computer Games Be Like?
You’ve just booted up a game on a state-of-the-art quantum computer. You’re running 19 superconducting quantum bits on…
Next-Gen Baggies Are Transforming Legal Weed
After a recent trip to her local dispensary, my mom recalled how, when she was young, black-market cannabis was really…
The Quietest Place in America Is Becoming a Warzone
N 47.51575°, W 123.52133°—Amid the panoply of greenery that makes up the Hoh Rainforest, a gap in the old growth forest…
Can You Get Sick From Air Conditioning?
At the peak of summer, when just walking to and from the corner store necessitates a shower and a change of clothes,…
How Many Nukes Would It Take to Send the Earth Spiraling Off Into the Sun?
The modern age has brought one of the most nightmarish inventions in all of human history—the atomic bomb. These…
How Tidal Got So Fucked
“If I gave two fucks - two fucks about streaming numbers, would have put Lemonade up on Spotify,” Beyoncé proclaims on “…
The Diabetes Cure That Most Insurance Companies Won't Pay for
For 15 years, Erez Benari’s struggle with his type 2 diabetes had been a losing one. A software engineer at Microsoft…
On Amazon’s Time
At the beating heart of Amazon’s unstoppable ecommerce expansion is a very basic promise: jobs.
How 1960s Film Pirates Sold Movies Before the FBI Came Knocking
It was a Friday evening in 1975, and Woody Wise was driving from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, with his two kids in the…
Are Plants Conscious?
Animal rights activists have done stellar work in foregrounding the question of creature-consciousness: no meat-eater…
Which Animal Kills the Most Humans?
Animals fatally maul, sting, trample, and chew about a million humans per year. Pretty nice of them, given the numbers…
Why Is My Face Changing Shape as I Get Older?
Two decades of healthy growth, followed by four to eight decades of slow-motion physical and mental collapse—that’s…