Curious Loop

He cast himself in a dazzling array of roles, both on and off the page. Can history restore the full measure of Wilde’s complexity?

When the app suffered a six hour outage this week, millions of people's lives were thrown into turmoil. Why were they there at all?

It's addictive, and most can't – or won't – kick it.

The pandemic made it clear that science touches everything, and everything touches science.

Many experts are rethinking longstanding core ideas, including the importance of inflation expectations.

Modern habits of speech radiate weakness. Avoid them to get on

Graduate school application season is upon us and so I wanted to take this as an opportunity to talk about it. Every year, I talk with undergraduate students who are considering pursuing a graduate…

The date is November 10th, 2019. Covid has plausibly started, but I don’t know it yet. I am a huge fan of Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast, and have been conducting my own lit review on civili…

We notice the most subtle cues from the world around us. Yet we miss the signals that come from within. With a little courage and a lot of practice, we can learn to follow the guidance of our inner North Star.

Someone appears to be pouring enormous energy and effort into a data collection project aimed at building personality profiles from social media interaction…again

With only a single breath, Alexey Molchanov, history’s most daring freediver, is reaching improbable depths—and discovering a new kind of enlightenment as he conquers one of the world’s wildest sports.

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

Low-traffic (once every 50 days) newsletter with keyboard stories and updates on the progress of the book about the history of keyboards. Subscribe and get instant access to cool secret stuff! Posts by Marcin Wichary.

The long read: Amid the complex web of international trade, proving the authenticity of a product can be near-impossible. But one company is taking the search to the atomic level

Lani Malmberg travels with a few hundred goats, which eat the tall brush and grasses that power Western wildfires.

Corporations are automating everything, even our pets

A college professor invented a cutting-edge sports drink. Then, things got complicated.

The studio’s superheroes have vanquished bankruptcy, censorship and the competition | The Economist explains

Footwear companies face big costs in potential new tariffs on more Chinese imports. Almost all shoes sold in the U.S. are made overseas. Only about 200 factories remain. One man tried to change that.

For centuries, this rock formation has puzzled & amazed geologists, historians, and conspiracy theorists across the globe. What makes Al Naslaa's structure so mystifying?

The fundamental cause was a wrong attitude towards the core question: who is responsible for safety?

The critic, translator, and publisher of Restless Books on why Cervantes' novel has lasted for century after century.

Advance could help solve a messy environmental problem

The world's oldest active torrent file turns 18 years old this month and is still being seeded by dozens of people.

The assumption that Adam Smith accepted inequality as the necessary trade-off for a more prosperous economy is wrong, writes Deborah Boucoyannis. In reality, Smith’s system precluded steep inequali…

In the 1960s, some experimental horticulturalists went nuclear.

At the age of 19, Arthur Germain dropped out of school, said goodbye to his famous mother, and devoted himself to a curious quest that no one had ever accomplished, or perhaps even seriously considered: swimming the length of France’s most fabled river.

Why the PC industry standardized on multimedia in the early ’90s, and why that standardization effort didn’t really last.

This hard-hitting blogpost by Ken Murray, a retired Los Angeles family doctor, helped open up discussions about why doctors routinely administer treatments to dying patients that they would adamantly refuse for themselves. Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopaedist and a mentor of mine, fo