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Social-Distancing Fatigue? Try a Professional Cuddler

For ninety dollars an hour, Trevor James, who is certified in the art of the snuggle and the caress, will offer any of eighty positions, amid what he calls a “touch-deprivation crisis.”

08/08/2022

The Reluctant Prophet of Effective Altruism

William MacAskill’s movement set out to help the global poor. Now his followers fret about runaway A.I. Have they seen our threats clearly, or lost their way?

08/08/2022

“Manifest,” by Jane Hirshfield

  Hawks, rivers, cities, ochre, us. A species whose right hand sketches its left handbut can’t draw itself. Whales.Geosynchronous satellites.A truck hauling folded tarps under a tarp.

08/08/2022

The Bernini of Bonsai

Benjamin Keating tours an exhibition of his sculptures, which combine bronzework with tiny trees, and recounts how he found an in with a secretive bonsai guy by bribing him with tomato sauce and fresh pasta.

08/08/2022

Bringing Back the Woolly Mammoth

Americans have long understood the species’ extinction as a warning. But is trying to “de-extinct” it really a good idea?

07/08/2022

Coffeezilla, the YouTuber Exposing Crypto Scams

In the golden age of con artistry, self-proclaimed finance gurus are everywhere, with few checks on their claims.

14/05/2022

The Promise of Carbon-Neutral Steel

A new manufacturing technique could drastically reduce the footprint of one of our dirtiest materials.

18/09/2021

How Harvard’s Star Computer-Science Professor Built a Distance-Learning Empire

Eren Orbey on how Harvard’s David Malan has worked to perfect online teaching, and what lessons his introductory course, CS50, might hold for the future of higher education, both during and after the coronavirus pandemic.

21/07/2020

New York’s Original Teen-Age Climate Striker Welcomes a Global Movement

Carolyn Kormann writes about Alexandria Villaseñor, a teen-ager in New York who has played a key role in organizing the global climate strike that took place this week in cities around the world.

21/09/2019

Money Is the Oxygen on Which the Fire of Global Warming Burns

Bill McKibben on what would happen if the banking, asset-management, and insurance industries decided to move away from fossil fuels, and on how the financial sector affects climate change.

17/09/2019

What Happens When a Group of Strangers Spends a Day Debating Immigration?

Masha Gessen reports from a deliberative-polling event in Houston, during which hundreds of people from across the political spectrum debated issues surrounding immigration.

23/07/2019

The Good News About a Green New Deal

Rapidly advancing technology and the falling costs of clean energy make the Green New Deal’s goal of transforming the U.S. economy to zero emissions by mid-century eminently achievable, John Cassidy writes.

04/03/2019

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