What might a more-efficient trial system look like? One collaboration in Chicago offers a possible way forward. Working together, several of the city’s academic medical centers have established a joint network for conducting clinical trials. Participating institutions now routinely interview all of their hospitalized patients, regardless of diagnosis, to keep detailed records on their health […]
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Posted inNonfiction
By the Reflection of What Is
On the aesthetics, performance, and “majestic wrath” of Frederick Douglass, the most-photographed American of the nineteenth century.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
By the Reflection of What Is
On the aesthetics, performance, and “majestic wrath” of Frederick Douglass, the most-photographed American of the nineteenth century.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Longreads Member Exclusive: Symmetrical Universe, by Alan Lightman
This week’s Member Pick is “Symmetrical Universe,” an essay by physicist Alan Lightman, published in the latest issue of Orion magazine. In it, Lightman explores the wonder of nature and the principles that guide its design—helping to answer questions like why a honeycomb is a hexagon, or why human-created art embraces asymmetry. Lightman is a professor […]
Posted inUncategorized
Our Longreads Member Pick: Symmetrical Universe, by Alan Lightman
This week’s Member Pick is “Symmetrical Universe,” an essay by physicist Alan Lightman, published in the latest issue of Orion magazine. In it, Lightman explores the wonder of nature and the principles that guide its design—helping to answer questions like why a honeycomb is a hexagon, or why human-created art embraces asymmetry. Lightman is a professor […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
How the Pogo Stick Leapt From Classic Toy to Extreme Sport
How timing and creativity can reignite interest in a toy: “Not long ago, three inventors—toiling at home, unaware of one another’s existence—set out to reimagine the pogo. What was so sacred about that ungainly steel coil? they wondered. Why couldn’t you make a pogo stick brawny enough for a 250-pound adult? And why not vault […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
When Funny Goes Viral
One weekend this spring, close to 1,000 people gathered on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to attend a sold-out conference devoted to the question “What is awesome on the Internet?” While the event included presenters and moderators with respectable research credentials from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and […]
Posted inUncategorized
How timing and creativity can reignite interest in a toy: Not long ago, three inventors—toiling at home, unaware of one another’s existence—set out to reimagine the pogo. What was so sacred about that ungainly steel coil? they wondered. Why couldn’t you make a pogo stick brawny enough for a 250-pound adult? And why not vault […]
