Ideas

Science & Technology

The Wandering Physicist

Luis Alvarez brought a scientific pragmatism to many of the twentieth century’s greatest mysteries, including the secrets of pyramids, the Kennedy assassination, and the disappearance of the dinosaurs.

March 12, 2026 issue

Ian Tattersall

Call Me by Your Names

The quest to fathom the riotous diversity of nature is absorbingly told in a virtual double biography of the great taxonomist Carl Linnaeus and his contemporary, the count of Buffon.

February 26, 2026 issue

Bill McKibben

It’s a Gas

There have been five great mass extinctions on Earth: four have been the result of carbon dioxide flooding into the atmosphere and raising the temperature.

January 15, 2026 issue

Jacob Weisberg

Algorithm Nation

Fights about digital filtering tools have turned more and more bitter. That’s because of their extraordinary power to shape both political opinion and mass culture.

October 23, 2025 issue

Clair Wills

Blood Work

A rare genetic mutation is best treated the nineteenth-century way, with bloodletting, showing up the strengths and weaknesses of the NHS.

January 15, 2026 issue

Pria Anand

The Plague That Won’t Die

As my recent diagnosis shows, tuberculosis is not a relic of medical history. It remains the leading infectious cause of death worldwide—and America is hardly immune.

December 18, 2025 issue

Anne Diebel

A Woman’s Burden

Freezing eggs has been marketed as a panacea for ambitious professional women supposedly hungry for more time to focus on their careers, when in reality it’s often a last resort for women negotiating a mating crisis.

November 20, 2025 issue

James Gleick

How the Web Was Lost

The Internet was not meant to suck.

December 4, 2025 issue

Artificial Intelligence

Jessica Riskin

A Sort of Buzzing Inside My Head

Whether ChatGPT passes the Turing Test is a less troubling question than what Alan Turing meant by “intelligence.”

June 25, 2023

Tim Parks

DeepL Edizioni

As machine translation software grows more sophisticated, could it entirely replace human translators?

March 22, 2023

Michael C. Dorf and Laurence H. Tribe

Court v. Chatbot

In a recent experiment, chatGPT showed a more developed moral sense than the Supreme Court’s current conservative supermajority.

December 26, 2022

Oliver Sacks

A selection of Oliver Sacks’s contributions to the New York Review. Read all of his pieces here.

Oliver Sacks

Speak, Memory

February 21, 2013 issue

Oliver Sacks

First Love

October 18, 2001 issue

Oliver Sacks

The Autist Artist

April 25, 1985 issue

Oliver Sacks

The Feeling of Disorder

April 23, 2015 issue

Oliver Sacks

The Mental Life of Plants and Worms

April 24, 2014 issue

Oliver Sacks

The Bull on the Mountain

June 28, 1984 issue

The Latest

Dan Rockmore

In Defense of Algebra

The mathematician Paul Lockhart believes to his core that math is the purest of the arts, and anyone can learn to love it.

April 9, 2026 issue

Jenny Uglow

All That Glitters

The science of gemstones has always been intertwined with their value as luxury items.

February 12, 2026 issue

Ian Frazier

Bang the Drumstick Slowly

About 26 billion chickens occupy Earth, but apart from the lucky ones in backyards, most are condemned to the hellscape that is industrial farming.

February 12, 2026 issue

Ben Lerner

Cardiography

After open-heart surgery

November 6, 2025 issue

Nitin K. Ahuja

Looking Behind the Veil

Can the tools of science be used to investigate the mysteries of death?

November 6, 2025 issue

Gavin Francis

Hope Management

Two recent books on the elusive work of psychiatric care explore the subject from both sides of the couch.

October 23, 2025 issue

Verlyn Klinkenborg

‘Such Flexible Intensity of Life’

Their striking intelligence makes octopuses tempting subjects for wishful anthropomorphism and uncanny reminders of nature’s mysteries.

October 9, 2025 issue

Thea Riofrancos

What’s Underground

Lithium, an essential ingredient in rechargeable batteries, epitomizes the contradictions of “green capitalism.”

September 17, 2025

Mark O’Connell

The War App

Silicon Valley has reversed its longtime resistance to working in defense and security technology, with the CEO of the data analytics software company Palantir leading the charge.

September 25, 2025 issue