I'm the chief digital writer for the Columbia Journalism Review
From The Oxford Clarion: "The Eagle & Child is Oxford’s most storied inn. It was here that the Inklings met every Tuesday lunchtime – a writing group including J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Hugo Dyson, who infamously dismissed a plot twist in the Lord of the
From the NYT: "In the 1850s, Eunice Foote, an amateur scientist, made a remarkable discovery about greenhouse gases that could have helped form the foundation of modern climate science. But the scientific paper she published that might have added her name to the pantheon of early climate scientists was
From The Smithsonian: "On the flat top of a steep hill in a distant corner of northern Japan lies the tomb of an itinerant shepherd who, two millennia ago, settled down there to grow garlic. He fell in love with a farmer’s daughter named Miyuko, fathered three kids
From USC: Oneida. For most Americans, the name conjures up fine silverware. Few are aware that behind this secular symbol of middle-class respectability lies the story of a 19th-century religious community predicated on radical notions of equality, sex and religion. The community’s founder, John Humphrey Noyes, was the scion
From The Sunday Times: "Somewhere in Boston there is a doctor who treats disorders of the brain: a brilliant woman, a Harvard graduate, a mother of two. But she has a dark secret. Unbeknown to her colleagues or her patients, she is also a writer of thrillers, churning them
From Wikipedia: "Emily Rosa is the youngest person to have a research paper published in a peer reviewed medical journal. At age nine she conceived and executed a scientific study of therapeutic touch which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1998. In 1996, Rosa
From Wikipedia: "At the height of Soviet–Chinese tensions in 1969, Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong ordered the construction of the Underground City. The Underground City was designed to withstand nuclear, biochemical and conventional attacks. The government claimed that the tunnels could accommodate all of Beijing's
From Links I Would Gchat You: "Tom Anderson, in the cultural imagination, is the tech bro that got away. He’s a foil to the Musks and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world, the exception that proves their rule isn’t that great. Just take a scroll through Myspace Tom’
From Wired: "Although fans of A Song of Ice and Fire might still be hankering for the long-delayed next book in the series, bestselling sci-fi/fantasy author George R.R. Martin has instead added a different item to his long list of publications: a peer-reviewed physics paper just published
From Undark: "One day in 1905, the French geophysicist Bernard Brunhes brought back to his lab some rocks he’d unearthed from a freshly cut road near the village of Pont Farin. When he analyzed their magnetic properties, he was astonished at what they showed: Millions of years ago,
From CNN: "Sonia Vallabh was in her second year at Harvard Law School in 2010 when her mother got sick. Just months before, her mother had been healthy and vibrant, planning Vallabh’s wedding. Then she began having trouble with her eyesight, and her strange symptoms progressed to the
From The Daily Beast: "The iconic 'Napalm Girl' photo that was taken in Vietnam in 1972 is considered one of the most powerful images depicting the human toll of armed conflict that has ever been captured, redirecting the course of the Vietnam War when it was first