I'm the chief digital writer for the Columbia Journalism Review
Richard Sima writes for the Washington Post: "The young woman was catatonic—unmoving, unblinking and unknowing where or who she was. Her name was April Burrell. Before she became a patient, April had been an outgoing, straight-A student majoring in accounting at the University of Maryland. But after
Robert Crease writes for the MIT Press: "In the summer of 1997, an environmental activist and sport fishing boat captain named Bill Smith called actor Alec Baldwin. He wanted to meet him at a diner in Amagansett, where Baldwin had a house, to talk about the nearby Brookhaven National
From Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution:"A new paper provides good evidence that the shingles vaccine can prevent dementia, which strongly suggests that some forms of dementia are caused by the varicella zoster virus, the virus that on initial infection causes chickenpox. The data come from Wales where the
From Judita at Bored Panda: "While most people probably think of clams and mussels as a part of some fancy dinner, it appears they have a much higher significance in some places. For example, the water quality in Warsaw, the capital city of Poland, is monitored by… well, yes,
From Kathryn Armstrong for the BBC: "Abigail Kinoiki Kekaulike Kawānanakoa, Hawaii's so-called 'last princess,' passed away in 2022 at the age of 96. Known to her friends as Kekau, was one of the last living links to the royal family and was celebrated for
From Atlas Obscura: "Taphophobia—the fear of being buried alive—was at a zenith in the 19th century. The horror of premature burial was magnified in southern port cities like Savannah, Georgia, that experienced periodic yellow fever epidemics. Inventors and entrepreneurs capitalized on this phobia by marketing a variety
Note to readers: In yesterday's newsletter, in a post about how Dr. Seuss wrote 'Green Eggs and Ham' on a bet with his publisher, Bennett Cerf, I mentioned parenthetically that Vinton Cerf, one of the inventors of the Ethernet communication standard, was Bennett's nephew.
Oliver Whang writes for the New York Times: "Gert-Jan Oskam was living in China in 2011 when he was in a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed from the hips down. In a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers in Switzerland described implants that provided
Gilbert King writes for Smithsonian magazine: "In the last days of America’s Gilded Age, Nikola Tesla made a dramatic attempt to change the future of communications and power transmission around the world. He managed to convince J.P. Morgan that he was on the verge of a breakthrough,
We all know that fashions were different in earlier times, but who knew something as simple as when someone chose to wear a hat could cause a massive riot, leading to dozens of arrests and injuries? That’s what happened in New York City in 1922, during the infamous “Straw
From Richard Collett for Atlas Obscura: "In the summer of 1348, the Black Death appeared on the southern shores of England. By the end of 1349, millions lay dead. According to historian Robert Tombs, author of The English and Their History, one of the many repercussions was the rise
Josh Wilbur writes for The Guardian: "Jake Haendel was a hard-partying chef from a sleepy region of Massachusetts. When he was 28, his heroin addiction resulted in catastrophic brain damage and very nearly killed him. In a matter of months, Jake's existence became reduced to a