Longreads

By Rob WalkerPrecisely because I love words, there are certain words I despise. Not a few have either come into existence, or have been redefined, in the digital-communication era. And I’m…

Longreads and The Atlantic have created a partnership that will feature Longreads content across The Atlantic’s digital properties, the companies announced Friday. Longreads, founded by former…

The restless desire to explore is now driving the space travel experts into speculative long term projects that aim to develop high speed starships. The experiments are unlikely to bear fruit for…

Taymour Karim didn’t crack under interrogation. His Syrian captors beat him with their fists, with their boots, with sticks, with chains, with the butts of their Kalashnikovs. They hit him so…

Nollywood Heights: Behind the scenes of Nigeria’s thriving film industry. Kunle Afolayan wants to scare you, he wants to

For this bodiless replicator itself, Richard Dawkins proposed a name. He called it the meme, and it became his most memorable invention, far more influential than his selfish genes or his later proselytizing against religiosity. “Memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation,” he wrote. They compete with one another for limited resources: brain time or bandwidth. They compete most of all for attention.

Plunging ratings. Tense negotiations. A bewildered, increasingly outraged Conan O’Brien and an anxiously pragmatic Jay Leno. In this excerpt from his new book, Bill Carter unfurls the behind-the-scenes story of late night’s explosive 2010 showdown. (“What does Jay have on you?” Conan asked, his voice still low, his tone still even. “What does this guy have on you people? What the hell is it about Jay?”)

Best known for creating the state-of-the-art super soaker squirt gun, Lonnie Johnson believes he now holds the key to affordable solar power.