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You Don’t Want a World Without Manual Transmission

I drive a stick shift. It’s a pain, sometimes. Clutching and shifting in bumper-to-bumper traffic wears you out. My wife can’t drive my car, which limits our transit options. And when I’m at the wheel, I can’t hold a cold, delicious slushie in one…

08/08/2022

Finally, Some Time to Not Relax

Ah, summertime! Right about now, you might be yearning or even packing for your dream vacation—one full of rest and relaxation. Long, languorous days of doing nothing, perhaps lying on the beach or holed up in a cabin somewhere far from the city.…

08/08/2022

Fish Oil Is Good! No, Bad! No, Good! No, Wait …

At first, it was all very exciting. In 1971, a team of Danish researchers stationed on Greenland’s northwest coast found that a local Inuit community had remarkably low levels of diabetes and heart disease.

05/08/2022

Between Not Wanting to Live and Not Wanting to Die

About the author: Jeffrey Ruoff is a filmmaker, film historian, and professor at Dartmouth College. His latest film is Bon Voyage. If you are having thoughts of suicide, please know that you are not alone. If you are in danger of acting on suicidal…

05/08/2022

Another Way the Coronavirus Is Dodging Our Immunity

By the time a cell senses that it’s been infected by a virus, it generally knows it is doomed. Soon, it will be busted up by the body’s immunological patrol or detonated by the invader itself. So the moribund cell plays its trump card: It bleats out…

04/08/2022

When Does the Clean-Energy Infinity Loop Start?

Digging up minerals for rechargeable batteries has a high initial cost, but eventually those minerals can be recycled indefinitely.

13/07/2022

The Future of Mud

A Senegalese architecture firm is championing a lower-tech material than concrete to help cities prepare for climate change.

05/07/2022

Does Wealth Rob the Brain of Compassion?

Paul Piff just landed on Park Place. I own it. “Shit,” he says. I also own three railroads, a couple of high-rent monopolies, and a smattering of random properties. Piff is low on cash. He’s toast. We’re playing Monopoly on a sunny pre-pandemic…

04/04/2021

Stockton’s Basic-Income Experiment Pays Off

Two years ago, the city of Stockton, California, did something remarkable: It brought back welfare. Using donated funds, the industrial city on the edge of the Bay Area tech economy launched a small demonstration program, sending payments of $500 a…

03/03/2021

Get a Heat Pump

If you’re like me, you know that getting rid of your car is one of the best things you can do for the climate, and also that you will never do it. This is a car-oriented country, and a car-oriented time.

26/02/2021

There Is No Chinese ‘Debt Trap’

China, we are told, inveigles poorer countries into taking out loan after loan to build expensive infrastructure that they can’t afford and that will yield few benefits, all with the end goal of Beijing eventually taking control of these assets from…

06/02/2021

The Weekly Planet: A Startup’s Unusual Plan to Suck Carbon Out of the Sky

Updated at 2:25 p.m. ET on December 1, 2020. Every Tuesday morning, our lead climate reporter brings you the big ideas, expert analysis, and vital guidance that will help you flourish on a changing planet. Sign up to get The Weekly Planet, our guide…

25/11/2020

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