A short piece published in BBC Magazine explored the science of whether murderers are born or made. A British neurocriminologist named Adrian Raine has made a career out of studying the brains of violent criminals. Raine was the first person to conduct a brain imaging study on murderers, and has since scanned the brains of numerous homicidal individuals, looking for similarities. […]
science
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Robert Oppenheimer on Albert Einstein and the Bomb
Though I knew Einstein for two or three decades, it was only in the last decade of his life that we were close colleagues and something of friends. But I thought that it might be useful, because I am sure that it is not too soon—and for our generation perhaps almost too late—to start to […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
The Art and Science of Failure
We are excited to share a reading (and watching!) list on science and failure from guest contributor Louise Lief. In 2014 Louise Lief began the Science and the Media project, an initiative that explores how science relates to our everyday lives. She is the former deputy director of the International Reporting Project.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What Nuclear Winter Would Do to the World’s Food Supply
Let me take the most likely one: the nuclear winter case. Say two countries that both have access to nuclear weapons get very angry at each other, and then retaliate, destroying most of the major cities in the opposite country. The vast bulk of humanity would survive, eventually. Say maybe we lost 5 percent of […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Longreads Best of 2014: Science Stories
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories. Here, the best in science writing.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Our Problem Might Not Be Gluten, After All
There is more to wheat than gluten. Wheat also contains a combination of complex carbohydrates, and the Australian team wondered if these could be responsible for the problems. Gibson and his colleagues devised a different study: they recruited a group of thirty-seven volunteers who seemed unable to digest gluten properly. This time, the researchers attempted […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What Happens When You Remove Half a Brain from Someone
Jeff and Tiernae Buttars made a difficult decision to have a portion of their son’s brain surgically removed to eliminate his seizures. William Buttars was 11 months old when he endured the nine-hour surgery. In Indianapolis Monthly, Michael Rubino reports about how this decision changed the lives of everyone involved and how William, now a […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes, Uncategorized
An Abstract Symphony of Flavors
As much as [Hervé] This has spent his career chiselling deductions down to the molecular bone of physical chemistry, he is still entranced by the art involved in making something delicious. He talked volumes, veering between the intricacies of the chemistry of emulsions and the delights of a meal prepared with care and served with […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘Probabilities Mess With Our Heads’
Conventional wisdom tells us that people are terrible with numbers. But as Kent realized back in the 1950s, we are even worse with words. In one study that Fischhoff co-authored, people had trouble understanding a 30-percent chance of rain. It wasn’t the probability that tripped them up, but the word: rain. Are we talking drizzle […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
A History of Scorpion Venom in Medicine
The new issue of Wired has a story about Jim Olson, a pediatric oncologist and cancer researcher whose lab is looking into whether a scorpion-venom concoction can help detect cancer cells in our bodies. Injecting our bodies with scorpion venom may sound somewhat outlandish, but it’s been used in medicine for quite a long time: […]