In Washington, D.C., where the Volstead Act—which provided for enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment—had been militantly approved, the police reported nearly a ten-fold increase in drunk driving arr...
If your brain does not receive sufficient stimulus, it might find something else to do—it daydreams, it wanders, it thinks about itself. If this goes on too long, it can affect your mind’s normal func...
I see poisoners—so calculating, so cold-blooded—as most like the villains of our horror stories. They’re closer to that lurking monster in the closet than some drug-impaired crazy with a gun. I don’t...
I can’t say that exhaustive research and reporting will guarantee a great story, but I’ve never been able to pull one off without it.
Even the help wanted ads in the back of Science or Nature can give you a clue as to what technology is hot.
Bettinger bought his first genetic test in 2003. A few years later he launched a blog—The Genetic Genealogist—with the aim of explaining the science behind the tests in simple language.
As the mother of the ten-month-old hospitalized in San Diego said, if people want to make that choice, they should go live on an island with its own schools and doctors: their own little infectious di...
Your subjective experience carries more power than your objective situation. If you feel like you’re alone even when you’re in a room filled with the people closest to you, you’re going to have proble...
Two years ago, when leaders in neighboring Mathews County broached the subject of sea-level rise, Tea Partiers packed meetings, warning of an environmentalist plot to put nature above man. They linked...
There was the Bennett Cocktail (gin, lime juice, bitters), the Bee’s Knees (gin, honey, lemon juice), the Gin Fizz (gin, lemon juice, sugar, seltzer water), and the Southside (lemon juice, sugar syrup...
TV’s influence on gender attitudes, social advancement, and fertility rates was equivalent to the impact of an extra five years of female education.
Plus, truthfully, he was bored by a job that consisted of little besides paperwork, meeting with other government officials, and harassing the mayor.
Government reporters may cover City Hall. Education reporters may write about schools and school boards. Science writers may report on asteroids one day, HIV vaccine experiments the next, sonar techno...
During the previous summer U.S. public health workers had accidentally killed four sailors, on two different foreign vessels, by fumigating against possible plague-carrying rats.
Automation turns us from actors into observers. Instead of manipulating the yoke, we watch the screen. That shift may make our lives easier, but it can also inhibit the development of expertise.
As we transform ourselves into creatures of the screen, we face an existential question: Does our essence still lie in what we know, or are we now content to be defined by what we want? If we don’t gr...
And it wasn’t just one warning. Eight years before the Panel on Climate Change’s report, an assessment of global warming’s impacts in New York City had also cautioned of potential flooding. Basically...
Death certificates were filled out with no effort at determining cause. Among the entries were 'could be suicide or murder,' and 'either assault of diabetes.' In one instance, a coroner had attributed...
A cloudy cocktail called Smoke, made by mixing water and fuel alcohol. Smoke joints were tucked into the back of paint stores, drugstores, and markets, among the dry goods and the stacked cans.
Your experiences today will influence the molecular composition of your body for the next two to three months, he tells his audience, or, perhaps, for the rest of your life. Plan your day accordingly.