Kyle Mizokami writes for Popular Mechanics: "Charles Gandy, an electrical engineer with the National Security Agency, was charged with figuring out if the U.S. embassy in Moscow had been compromised. Counterintelligence had reason to believe that somehow, information was getting out that compromised American intelligence agents. It had
From Manuel Roig-Franzia for the Washington Post: "They strain on tiptoes, squinting through gaps in the metal sheets and iron fencing that buttress the wall. They hope to catch even the most fleeting glimpse of the last remaining inhabitant of this creaky relic of a bygone era’s upper
From Marina Koren for The Atlantic: "A website called The Debrief—which says it specializes in 'frontier science' and describes itself as self-funded—reported this week that a former intelligence official named David Grusch said that the U.S. government has spent decades secretly recovering 'intact
From Dan Lewis: "On Friday, July 19, 1957, the Milwaukee Braves beat the New York Giants, 3-1, and the Baltimore Orioles topped the Kansas City Athletics, 4-2. Today — more than sixty years later — you can look that up pretty quickly. But on July 11, 1957, predicting those two scores
From Shoshi Parks for the Smithsonian magazine: "In 1884, the water hyacinth delighted audiences when it made its North American debut in New Orleans. But beneath its pretty exterior, the hyacinth hid its true nature as a malevolent marauder. The plant spread like a virus first in Louisiana and
From a memoir by Anne Frank's childhood friend Hannah Pick-Goslar, excerpted in Time magazine: "One morning in early June 1942, I was standing on the street whistling our usual whistle under the window of Anne’s apartment. Anne was running a bit late and I was anxious
From Dan Lewis: "You’ve almost certainly never heard of the band Vulfpeck. They’re a Los Angeles-based funk band. It’s hard to make a living releasing songs (or any media) to a small audience, since Spotify pays about $0.007 per song play to independent artists. So
Michael Walsh writes for Nerdist: "At Silicon Valley Comic Con in 2016, Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage was asked by a fan about the biggest behind-the-scenes disaster the show ever had. Savage didn’t share some lighthearted tale about an argument or fight the cast had, but instead told the
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 a
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,