See the Real Live Man Who Grew Up in a Carnival

For our reporter, “Nightmare Alley” recalls a childhood spent working the circuit with his parents. Carnies like the World’s Smallest Woman welcomed him when cruel classmates didn’t.

The Story of Carolina Gold, the Best Rice You've Never Tasted

Due in large part to Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills, a Georgia optometrist, and several members of what's known as the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation (yes, that exists), Carolina Gold rice is back, allowing a new generation of home cooks to experience what real Lowcountry cooking…

The Story of Catherine the Great

Hulu’s “The Great” offers an irreverent, ahistorical take on the Russian empress’ life. This is the real history behind the period comedy.

Death of a Lobsterman

On a remote island in Maine, a group of friends thought they witnessed one man killing another with an ax. But no one was ever arrested. In a small town far out at sea, justice sometimes works a little differently.

In New Mexico, Money Grows on Trees

The painstaking process of picking piñon makes for a booming roadside economy for the Navajo Nation and other Indigenous Americans

The Flying Santas Who Airdrop Christmas Cheer to America’s Lighthouse Keepers

When a 1920s aviation pioneer launched a thank-you project for the families that keep coastal ships safe, he propelled a tradition that’s lasted longer than he ever imagined.

It’s Hard Out Here—Way, Way, Way Out Here—for a Medic

Oil-field medics face long hours, grisly accidents, desolation, and low pay. So why do they do it?

Old Trucks for New Money

The booming market for certain vintage vehicles is driven by a particular vision of authenticity.

The Spine Collector

For five years, a mysterious figure has been stealing books before their release. Is it espionage? Revenge? A trap? Or a complete waste of time?

How an American in Paris won the rarest of French honors

Josephine Baker next week will become the first Black woman and first American to be honored with enshrinement in Paris' Pantheon.

The Pigeon Puzzle: How Do They Figure Out Their Impossibly Long Routes Home? | The Walrus

You might consider them flying rats, but their odysseys stump scientists

How the Rosetta Stone Yielded Its Secrets

The quest to decode hieroglyphic writing.

The Notorious Mrs. Mossler

In the mid-sixties, Candace Mossler was one of the most widely known socialites in Houston. She was in her forties, vivacious and full of charm, with wavy blond hair, deep-blue eyes, and a surgically enhanced figure that was often remarked upon in the many newspaper columns…

Can a Boxer Return to the Ring After Killing?

In 2019, Charles Conwell unintentionally ended Patrick Day’s life with his fists. Now he’s trying to make sense of his life, and boxing itself.

David Simon and the Creation of “The Wire”

Margaret Talbot’s 2007 Profile of the show’s creator, with a behind-the-scenes look at the filming of “The Wire” ’s fifth season.

What It Takes to Climb the World’s Most Forbidding Cliffs

After decades of dominance, Tommy Caldwell is still seeking new ascents.

The World’s Deadliest Thing — Anthony Warner

It is deadly, invisible and shapes much of the food we eat. A teaspoon of it could kill millions of people, and it is probably the most expensive material on earth. Yet you probably have some stuck to the bottom of you shoe.

The Tomb Raiders of the Upper East Side

Inside the Manhattan DA’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit

The Old Country Meets Prozac Nation on “The Sopranos”

From 1999: “There has certainly never been anything like it on TV, and on network TV there never could be anything like it.”

The Odor of Things, by Scott Sayare

Solving the mysteries of scent

The Incredible Tale of the Greatest Toy Man You've Never Known

He brought Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Cabbage Patch Kids to our living rooms. He made and lost fortunes. Can Al Kahn stay in the game?

What lies beneath: the secrets of France’s top serial killer expert

The long read: An intrepid expert with dozens of books to his name, Stéphane Bourgoin was a bestselling author, famous in France for having interviewed more than 70 notorious murderers. Then an anonymous collective began to investigate his past

Eliud Kipchoge: Inside the camp, and the mind, of the greatest marathon runner of all time

He’s the greatest marathoner in history, a national hero in Kenya, and an icon for runners around the world. But despite his fame and wealth, Eliud Kipchoge chooses to live the most basic lifestyle. Cathal Dennehy travels to the highlands of Kenya for an inside look at his…

Brain Damage Saved His Music - Issue 20: Creativity - Nautilus

After a chunk of his brain was removed, guitarist Pat Martino got his groove back.

"A Great Day In Harlem": Remembering the iconic 1958 photo of legendary musicians

58 musicians showed up for a picture that captured the giants of jazz

Organ transplant patients (maybe) don’t get dementia. Here’s why. – Trevor

The Awe-Inspiring But Tragic Story of Africa’s Festival In The Desert (2001

Nenad Georgievski writes at All About Jazz, though the world knew little about Malian music until American musicians began partnering with players from West Africa. In the 1980s, Stevie Wonder began touring with Amadou and Mariam, helping to popularize their form of Malian blues.

How Bionic Gloves Gave a Maestro Pianist His Hands Back

A lifetime of brutal injuries and misfortune robbed the world-renowned pianist João Carlos Martins of the ability to play his instrument. And then along came an eccentric designer and his bionic gloves.

How 12th-century Genoese merchants invented the idea of risk | Psyche Ideas

From the docks of 12th-century Genoa to the gambling tables of today, risk is a story that we tell ourselves about the future

How to Read “Gilgamesh” | The New Yorker

The heart of the world’s oldest long poem is found in its gaps and mysteries.

Inside Ekiben’s six-hour trip to make a special dish for customer dying of cancer

It flurried all day Sunday in Vermont. Ekiben co-founder Steve Chu watched the flakes with dread. Snow in the fryer would be trouble. This is the story of how the owners of Baltimore’s most p…

Are We on the Verge of Chatting with Whales? | Hakai Magazine

An ambitious project is attempting to interpret sperm whale clicks with artificial intelligence, then talk back to them.

The last great mystery of the mind: meet the people who have unusual – or non-existent – inner voices

Does your internal monologue play out on a television, in an attic, as a bickering Italian couple – or is it entirely, blissfully silent?

For Forest Blazes Grown Wilder, an Alternative: The 'Good Fire'

Despite the evidence supporting prescribed fires in the American West, policymakers are slow to put it into practice.

Hatch green chiles are feeling the heat

Growers of New Mexico’s iconic crop wrestle with drought, water rights and labor shortages.

The Daring Diplomat Who Proved One Person Can Thwart an Empire

A whistleblower puts his life on the line to defy Soviet aggression. Over sixty years later, this forgotten story of subterfuge, smears and suspicious death has never felt more timely.

The Day Treva Throneberry Disappeared

The North Texas teenager went missing in the late eighties. For years, no one knew where she was, or even if she was still alive-no one, that is, except a mysterious young woman two thousand miles away.

The Ship That Became a Bomb

Stranded in Yemen’s war zone, a decaying supertanker has more than a million barrels of oil aboard. If—or when—it explodes or sinks, thousands may die.

Searching for Mr. X - The Atavist Magazine

For eight years, a man without a memory lived among strangers at a hospital in Mississippi. But was recovering his identity the happy ending he was looking for?

The Legacy of Colin Kaepernick: On the First High School Team to Take a Knee

James A. Garfield High School in Seattle is a place where you can feel the history thrum throughout the hallways. Quincy Jones and Jimi Hendrix were students here. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke …

When Nazis tried to trace Aryan race myth in Tibet

Heinrich Himmler sent a team of five Germans to Tibet in 1938 to pursue the Aryan race myth.

The Mystery of People Who Speak Dozens of Languages | The New Yorker

What can hyperpolyglots teach the rest of us?

When Wall Street came to coal country: how a big-money gamble scarred Appal

The long read: Around the turn of the millennium, hedge fund investors put an audacious bet on coal mining in the US. The bet failed – but it was the workers and the environment that paid the price

The Secret Sisterhood of Offshore Oil Workers

Living on a remote oil platform 60 miles out into the Gulf of Mexico is no easy assignment. Now imagine being one of the first women to ever step on board.

‘Every message was copied to the police’: the inside story of the most daring surveillance sting in history

Billed as the most secure phone on the planet, An0m became a viral sensation in the underworld. There was just one problem for anyone using it for criminal means: it was run by the police

Florida nurses feel helpless as so many people die of COVID

On this ward at Morton Plant Hospital, nurses are overwhelmed by the number of new, desperate cases.

Rain Boots, Turning Tides, and the Search for a Missing Boy

Last year in Nova Scotia, after 3-year-old Dylan Ehler vanished, online sleuths descended on Facebook groups to help find him. Then they lost their way.

The disastrous voyage of Satoshi, the world’s first cryptocurrency cruise s

The long read: Last year, three cryptocurrency enthusiasts bought a cruise ship. They named it the Satoshi, and dreamed of starting a floating libertarian utopia. It didn’t work out

The Lost Boys

It was the most shocking crime of its day, 27 boys from the same part of town kidnapped, tortured, and killed by an affable neighbor named Dean Corll. Forty years later, it remains one of the least understood—or talked about—chapters in Houston's history.

The Million-Dollar Nose

With his stubborn disregard for the hierarchy of wines, Robert Parker, the straight-talking American wine critic, is revolutionizing the industry -- and teaching the French wine establishment some lessons it would rather not learn.