“From our jokes and slang to the White House’s policy messaging, internet ‘brain rot’ has escaped our phones to take over … well, everything.”
Peter Rubin
Posted inEditor's Pick
Hallucinated Citations Are Polluting the Scientific Literature. What Can Be Done?
“Tens of thousands of publications from 2025 might include invalid references generated by AI, a ‘Nature’ analysis suggests.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Beyond a ‘Reasonable Doubt’
“Revisiting Jay-Z’s hustler masterpiece—released on his own label at age 25—in the rapper’s billionaire era.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘The Worst Neighbor Ever’
“He moved to the block promising a new bookstore. He brought a whole lot more than that. Now no one is quite sure how to describe what happened outside Quirky Books.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
How American Camouflage Conquered the World
“The world-famous MultiCam pattern was designed for the military by two Brooklyn hipsters. Now everyone—from babies to ICE agents—is suited up for battle.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Do You Actually Have to Finish That Novel?
“A critic considers the strange moral pressure we feel to read to the very last page.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
It’s the Music You Hear All Day, Without Ever Noticing
“Sync music” has become the soundtrack to our lives — whether we realize it or not.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Thinking in the Margins
“What Oliver Sacks jotted down in the books he read.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Lost Recipes
“The Mind Squad and editorial staff like theirs—people who understood and loved the music—would create a new, vibrant, and deeply informed style of cultural journalism that defined an era.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Buckle Up for Bumpier Skies
“With climate change, the skies are becoming more turbulent. Can today’s planes still keep us safe?”