Search Results for: Science

The Terminator Scenario: Are We Giving Our Military Machines Too Much Power?

The Terminator Scenario: Are We Giving Our Military Machines Too Much Power?

Ryan Seacrest: 'Dark Lord of Hosts'

Ryan Seacrest: ‘Dark Lord of Hosts’

Ryan Seacrest: ‘Dark Lord of Hosts’

Longreads Pick

Napping is for mortals. The Angel of the Bottomless Pit has souls to harvest, a mission demanding as much science as art. Seacrest’s voice — full of wiseass pep — has worked on radio for more than half his present incarnation, dating to his high school days in suburban Atlanta. It is not a versatile or interesting voice — expunged of all traces of any but the most generic middle-American accent, it is the aural equivalent of a bag of fast-food fries — but it is quick and, in a familiar sort of way, engaging.

Author: Scott Raab
Source: Esquire
Published: Jul 1, 2006
Length: 15 minutes (3,902 words)

Brendan Maher: My Top 5 Longreads of 2010

I’m the biology features editor for the news team at Nature, the UK-based science journal. Longreads kindly asked me to offer up my five favourite couldn’t-put-down features for the year, and I was happy to comply. The focus on biology wasn’t intentional, but I did purposely keep features from Nature out of the running (it’s like choosing which child you love best!).

***

Autism’s First Child (John Donvan & Caren Zucker, The Atlantic, October 2010)

This profile of the first person technically diagnosed with autism is as touching as it is revealing about the troubles faced by doctors, patients and patient advocates when trying to determine a diagnosis.

Paper Trail: Inside the Stem Cell Wars (sub req’d) (Peter Aldhous, New Scientist, June 9, 2010)

Peter Aldhous went to town with a data-mining quest designed to verify a claim that several scientists had been complaining about: namely, that the publication of papers in a specific area of stem cell research was being manipulated by a cadre of influential scientists. It’s not exactly narrative form, but a stellar data visualization effort.

Depression’s Upside (Jonah Lehrer, New York Times, Feb. 28, 2010)

Jonah Lehrer deftly maneuvered this puzzling, but oddly compelling argument that depression has a purpose and benefit for the brain. It doesn’t soft pedal the real and relevant criticisms of evolutionary psychology, but still presents a nice picture of the “tortured genius” paradox (see also David Dobbs’ “Orchid Children” which missed making this list for a temporal technicality).

The Covenant (Peter J. Boyer, The New Yorker, Sept. 6, 2010)

Peter J. Boyer’s masterfully nuanced profile of NIH director Francis Collins was exquisitely written and did a nice job of really digging into someone whose faith–it would seem–has lots of potential to come into conflict with his job. It also happened to be timed quite well with the collapse of funding for stem cell research–something that The New Yorker couldn’t plan for, but obviously accommodated quite deftly.

The Brain that Changed Everything (Luke Dittrich, Esquire, Oct. 25, 2010)

This is just a stirring feature on one of the events of the year for neuroanatomy. It recounts the life and death and dissection of Henry Molaison, who lost the ability to form new memories after an operation to remove his hippocampus. The operation was performed by William Scoville and the piece is written by Scoville’s grandson.

The Desperate Battle Against Killer Bat Plague

The Desperate Battle Against Killer Bat Plague

The Early Woody Allen 1952-1971

Longreads Pick

Larry Gelbart and Woody Allen got work on another episode of The Chevy Show, this one hosted by Pat Boone. For their work they were nominated for an Emmy. The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences recognized the incredible amount of skill, talent and ability necessary to make Pat Boone enjoyable.

Source: WFMU
Published: Feb 1, 2010
Length: 44 minutes (11,028 words)

What You Want: Flickr Creator Spins Addictive New Web Service

Longreads Pick

Connecting people to one another is not just Caterina Fake’s hobby — she has made it her career. As the cofounder of Flickr, the landmark photography site, Fake provided a place for shutterbugs to share their work; they have uploaded more than 4 billion pictures. It was a seminal service that helped launch the era of user-generated content, spurring entrepreneurs to build Web sites and businesses based on volunteer contributions. Now, with Hunch, Fake is back, and she’s using her social skills to tackle one of the most vexing problems in computer science: online recommendations.

Source: Wired
Published: Jul 28, 2010
Length: 16 minutes (4,173 words)

Nonoverlapping Magisteria

Longreads Pick

In early 1984, I spent several nights at the Vatican housed in a hotel built for itinerant priests. While pondering over such puzzling issues as the intended function of the bidets in each bathroom, and hungering for something other than plum jam on my breakfast rolls (why did the basket only contain hundreds of identical plum packets and not a one of, say, strawberry?), I encountered yet another among the innumerable issues of contrasting cultures that can make life so interesting. Our crowd (present in Rome for a meeting on nuclear winter sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences) shared the hotel with a group of French and Italian Jesuit priests who were also professional scientists.

Published: Mar 1, 1997
Length: 19 minutes (4,763 words)

Bernie Madoff, Free at Last

Longreads Pick

In prison he doesn’t have to hide his lack of conscience. In fact, he’s a hero for it.

Published: Jun 6, 2010
Length: 19 minutes (4,954 words)

The Estrogen Dilemma

Longreads Pick

New science is showing that estrogen’s effects on women’s minds and bodies may depend upon when they first start taking it. What should you do?

Published: Apr 14, 2010
Length: 30 minutes (7,604 words)