The Sultan of Spatter
Dr. Donald Johnson has spent his career making crime scene blood stains spill their secrets. His next mission: bringing forensic science into the iPad age.
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How the Most Hyped U.S. Oil Merger in a Decade Went Bust
As CEO of Occidental Petroleum, Vicki Hollub made the biggest deal the oil business had seen in years. Will it also go down as the biggest failure?
How to be a genius
I travelled the world and trawled the archive to unearth the hidden lessons from history’s most brilliant people
C’est Si Bon: Eartha Kitt’s Transformative Life
Kitt’s 1989 autobiography, “Confessions of a Sex Kitten,” tracks an icon’s incredible journey from abused child to outspoken star.
Palantir’s God’s-Eye View of Afghanistan
The company’s software can sift through enormous amounts of data, and those metrics can be used to make life-or-death decisions.
This ‘hillbilly madman’ is country music royalty. So why haven’t you heard
The hard life and overlooked brilliance of Zane Campbell.
Neil Peart: Rush Drummer's Bold Life and Brave Final Years - Rolling Stone
For the first time since the passing of Rush's drum god, Neil Peart, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson speak about his legacy.
WHERE IS BUM FARTO
In Sept. 9, 1975, William Osterhoudt, a local school principal, looked out at an implausible scene unfolding at the pink house belonging to his neighbor on United Street. Key West Fire Chief Joseph…
What Do Wall Street Leaders Think Is the Next Big Risk?
We asked three executives who’ve spent their careers on the cutting edge of the financial industry what they see coming in 5 to 10 years. Here are their answers.
How to Go From Working in a Steel Mill to Being the Highest Paid Actor on TV
Ed O’Neill made his career during the era when networks dominated TV, starring in “Married... With Children” and “Modern Family.” He also gives a stunning performance in the recently released film “The Last Shift,” a new comedy about working-class life. He opens up to…
The Catch
The rescue in July of two children from a burning apartment in Grenoble, southern France, captivated the world. For the first time six of the seven men injured in the rescue explain what happened in those critical moments.
Ted Danson Was Never Sam Malone. That’s Why He Was Such a Great Sam Malone.
Although ‘Cheers’ made the actor a star, he always swore he had a tough time getting comfortable playing the womanizing character. But the humanity he brought to Sam has informed his career and his life ever since.
Keeping Watch Over Seabirds at the World’s Edge | Hakai Magazine
In Alaska, one of the longest-running and most comprehensive seabird monitoring projects is equal parts tedium, adventure, truth, and beauty.
The Lost History of Yellowstone
Debunking the myth that the great national park was a wilderness untouched by humans
The Last Two Northern White Rhinos On Earth - The New York Times
What will we lose when Najin and Fatu die?
Perspective | My two weeks with John le Carré: What I learned about writing, fame and grace when I showed him around Miami in 1991.
He wanted to learn about the Miami drug world and had been told I could help.
The Poke Paradox
Where culinary bliss meets environmental peril, and how to solve America’s poke problem.
When COVID hit, a Colorado county kicked out second-home owners. They hit b
How a group of nonresident homeowners tried to influence a rural Colorado election.
In this rapaciously dry year, a quiet question grows louder: What are we do
Drought, dread and family in the American Southwest.
Dr. Death: The Shocking Story of Christopher Duntsch, a Madman with a Scalp
Plano surgeon Christopher Duntsch left a trail of bodies. The shocking story of a madman with a scalpel.
Russian Off-Roaders Crossed 2,000 Miles of Siberia to Reach One Of The Most
Oh, you hit the fire road again with your lifted Wrangler? Cute.
The Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants: Discover the 1977 Illustrated Gu
I mean, the idea that you would give a psychedelic—in this case, magic mushrooms or the chemical called psilocybin that's derived from magic mushrooms—to people dying of cancer, people with terminal diagnoses, to help them deal with their - what's called existential distress.
The Squid Hunter | The New Yorker
The giant squid has taken on a near-mythical status for generations of sailors, explorers, and writers. How could something so big remain unseen—or be less understood than dinosaurs?
Herschel, the Very Hungry Sea Lion | Hakai Magazine
It’s dangerous to blame the decline of one species on a single predator. We humans like to do it anyway.
Why Is There a Bucatini Shortage in America?
What the hole is going on?
The Plague Year | The New Yorker
The mistakes and the struggles behind America’s coronavirus tragedy.
Raiders of the lost steel
The skills behind the legendary sharpness of wootz steel were once forgotten, but Andy Extance talks to the researchers unsheathing its secrets
Reading, That Strange and Uniquely Human Thing
How we evolved to read is a story of one creative species.
Pugilism on the Plains
How a booming oil town aimed to become a western metropolis through one of the most ill-conceived boxing matches of all time.
The Tasting Menu at the End of the World
Sonoma County’s SingleThread has been hailed as the apotheosis of high-end, farm-to-table dining. The perpetual threat of wildfires and once-in-a-generation flooding also make it a case study in the challenges that climate change will soon pose to restaurants everywhere.
The Proving Grounds: Charley Crockett and the Story of Deep Ellum - Longreads
Generations of musicians got their start busking the streets of the Deep Ellum neighborhood of Dallas, Texas. After a decade of 'hobo-ing' around cities like New Orleans, Paris, and New York, Charley Crockett discovered it was his turn.
The Curious Cons of the Man Who Wouldn’t Die | GQ
When Mark Olmsted contracted HIV, in the early 1980s, he figured the disease was a death sentence. And so he hatched a scheme to live out his last years in style—swiping credit cards, bilking insurance companies, even faking his own death. What’s the problem with some forgery…
A family with no fingerprints
A family in Bangladesh struggles with an extremely rare genetic condition, "immigration delay disease".
The Mystery of Mistletoe’s Missing Genes
Mistletoes have all but shut down the powerhouses of their cells. Scientists are still trying to understand the plants’ unorthodox survival strategy.
Louisiana’s Disappearing Coast | The New Yorker
The state loses a football field’s worth of land every hour and a half. Now engineers are in a race to prevent it from sinking into oblivion.
The World’s Cheapest Hospital Has to Get Even Cheaper - Bloomberg
Cancer surgery for $700, a heart bypass for $2,000. Pretty good, but under India’s new health-care system, it’s not good enough.
John Franzese ratted out his Colombo crime family father – then disappeared
John Franzese Jr. helped send his father, notorious Colombo family mobster Sonny Franzese, to prison. Then he turned up in Indianapolis.
How To Lose Everything And Get Some Of It Back
The hunt to find Dorothy’s stolen ruby slippers from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ - T
How a big crime in a small town produced a whodunit as gripping and colorful as “The Wizard of Oz” itself.
Secret spectacles - BBC News
The story of a migrant spy
‘None of this happened the way you think it did’ — High Country News – Know
For years, the clients of a Colorado funeral home kept their loved ones’ cremated remains. Then the FBI called.
How SoulCycle lost its soul
The boutique fitness phenomenon sold exclusivity with a smile, until a toxic atmosphere and a push for growth brought the whole thing down.
The Year in Physics
Featuring paradoxical black holes, room-temperature superconductors and a new escape from the prison of time.
Ads Don’t Work That Way | Melting Asphalt
Gravity, Gizmos, and a Grand Theory of Interstellar Travel | WIRED
For decades, Jim Woodward dreamed of a propellantless engine to take humans to the stars. Now he thinks he’s got it. But is it revolutionary—or illusory?
The Mystery of Deceased Hiker ‘Mostly Harmless’ Is At Long Last Solved
Why Iceland’s Christmas Witch Is Much Cooler (and Scarier) Than Krampus
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With roots dating back to the 13th century, Grýla is not to be messed with.
In a Pandemic Fairy Tale, a Garden Leads to a Magical Friendship (Published 2020)
A 4-year-old girl coping with the loneliness of the pandemic created a tiny garden, and kindled an unlikely friendship with an enchanted neighbor who moved into her tree.
Strange Company
A walk on the weird side of history
"If it Hadn't Been for the Prompt Work of the Medics": FSB Officer Inadvertently Confesses Murder Plot to Navalny - bellingcat
Bellingcat and its partners reported that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) was implicated in the near-fatal nerve-agent poisoning of Alexey Navalny on 20 August 2020. The report identified eight clandestine operatives with medical and chemical/biological warfare expertise…