Posted inNonfiction, Reading List

Living During an Age of Anxiety: A Reading List

When I am wracked with anxiety, I make a list of everything that is stressing me. These lists have included “transportation plans for this weekend,” “living at home,” “Sandy [my dog] dying,” “getting props for the play” and “editing articles for The Annual.” I don’t write solutions. Sometimes, there are no solutions, or the solutions are […]

Posted inNonfiction, Quotes

'We Are Made of Star Stuff'

From New York magazine and The Cut, an essay from Sasha Sagan about the lessons that her father, astronomer and author Carl Sagan, taught her. Here, Sasha recalls what her parents told her when she went through what she describes as a “mini existential crisis”: “You are alive right this second. That is an amazing […]

Posted inEditor's Pick

Genome Surgery

Our ability to edit the genome using DNA-cutting proteins may have a profound effect on the way we treat diseases in the future: It is likely to be at least several years before such efforts can be developed into human therapeutics, but a growing number of academic researchers have seen some preliminary success with experiments […]

Posted inEditor's Pick

Two Gunshots on a Summer Night

A Florida sheriff’s deputy’s girlfriend is found dead, and the investigation—led by his colleagues—is botched. The case sets off a battle between investigators over whether Michelle O’Connell committed suicide or was murdered: In fact, though investigators collected the gun, clothing and other evidence, they never tested it for fingerprints, DNA or gunshot residue. Officers also […]

Posted inUncategorized

Today, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the police can collect a DNA swab from people who have been arrested but not convicted of a crime. The justices were unusually divided—conservative Justice Antonin Scalia joined liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan on the dissenting opinion. For some deeper context, read Harry […]

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