Brain Gain

The underground world of “neuroenhancing” drugs.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Apr 27, 2009
Length: 38 minutes (9,633 words)

The dark side of Dubai

Dubai was meant to be a Middle-Eastern Shangri-La, a glittering monument to Arab enterprise and western capitalism. But as hard times arrive in the city state that rose from the desert sands, an uglier story is emerging. Johann Hari reports

Source: The Independent
Published: Apr 7, 2009
Length: 35 minutes (8,766 words)

Batteries Not Included

Shai Agassi stood in a warehouse on the outskirts of Tel Aviv one afternoon last month and watched his battery-swapping robot go to work. He was conducting a demonstration of the curious machine that is central to his two-year-old clean-energy company, which is called Better Place.

Published: Apr 16, 2009
Length: 17 minutes (4,457 words)

How the E-Book Will Change the Way We Read and Write

Author Steven Johnson outlines a future with more books, more distractions — and the end of reading alone

Published: Apr 20, 2009
Length: 10 minutes (2,632 words)

In Defense of Your Own Plane

Don’t sell that jet yet! For many companies, keeping it makes sense.

Source: Barron’s
Published: Apr 20, 2009
Length: 7 minutes (1,824 words)

Team of Rivals Redux

How four men and one woman, with very different backgrounds and views, shaped the New Deal.

Published: Apr 16, 2009
Length: 6 minutes (1,662 words)

Stealing Mona Lisa

The shocking theft of the Mona Lisa, in August 1911, appeared to have been solved 28 months later, when the painting was recovered.

Source: Vanity Fair
Published: May 11, 2009
Length: 25 minutes (6,315 words)

Into the Electronic Millennium

The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age

Published: Jan 1, 1994
Length: 69 minutes (17,454 words)

Hey, Wait A Minute! I Want To Talk

John Madden has burst upon the American scene as few others in sport, but contrary to his bull-in-a-beer-ad image, he loves nothing more than good quiet conversation, and his skill as a communicator is the key to his success both as a football coach and as a broadcaster.

Published: Sep 1, 1983
Length: 29 minutes (7,381 words)

Interview with David Foster Wallace

“My own plan for the coming fourteen months is to knock on doors and stuff envelopes. Maybe even to wear a button. To try to accrete with others into a demographically significant mass. To try extra hard to exercise patience, politeness, and imagination on those with whom I disagree. Also to floss more.”

Source: The Believer
Published: Nov 11, 2003
Length: 25 minutes (6,308 words)