How Small Farmers Are Fighting To Keep Vermont’s Identity Alive
Not much says “America” more than the small dairy farm, and Vermont has spent decades selling that image. Increasingly, it’s a relic of a bygone era. As of the third quarter of 2019, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets had accounted for only 675 dairy farms in the state.
Real Estate For The Apocalypse: My Journey Into A Survival Bunker
Doomsday luxury accommodation is a booming business, offering customers a chance to sit out global pandemics and nuclear wars in comfort – as long as they have the money to pay for it.
The Diabolical Genius Of The Baby Advice Industry
Every baffled new parent goes searching for answers in baby manuals. But what they really offer is the reassuring fantasy that life’s most difficult questions have one right answer. While there might indeed be one right way to do things, you will never get to find out what it is.
What Will An Ice-Free Arctic Look Like?
Several years in the past decade have reached new lows for summer sea ice extent, raising questions about what will happen in this new Arctic as the ice declines and retreats. How will the ecosystem respond? Can treaties keep fishing in the central Arctic in check?
A Trip To The Cirque Of The Unclimbables
It’s among the most beautiful eyefuls of landscape I’ve ever seen — its rock walls more overpowering than Zion’s, in Utah, its evening light more perfect than Hawaii’s, its peaks more menacing than Denali, and its stillness more complete than the deep rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula.
Inside The Strange World Of Kidnap And Ransom Survival Schools
Risks Inc. is one of a few dozen private companies I had found that offer kidnap prevention and survival courses. Costs range from about $600 to a couple thousand dollars. Some are entirely in a classroom; others include role-playing.
The People Of Las Vegas
Las Vegas is a place about which people have ideas. They have thoughts and generalizations, takes and counter-takes, most of them detached from any genuine experience and uninformed by any concrete reality.
Behind The Scenes At Rotten Tomatoes
Humans, not algorithms, determine those ubiquitous scores. The Tomatometer is run by a team of “curators” who read just about every known review from a gigantic pool of approved critics, then decide if each is positive or negative. Once a movie has five reviews, it is Tomatometer-eligible.
How Many Murders Can A Police Informer Get Away With?
Northern Irish paramilitary Gary Haggarty pleaded guilty to hundreds of violent crimes, including many killings – while working for the British state. They included five murders; five attempted murders; one count of aiding and abetting murder.
The Curse Of The Ship Of Gold
How Tommy Thompson, a brilliant scientist, went from discovering a mother lode of treasure at the bottom of the sea to fleeing from authorities with suitcases full of cash.
When Does An Accident Become A Crime?
While driving through a dangerous curve in East Texas, James Fulton crossed into oncoming traffic and killed a young woman. The cops said the crash was an accident. But the Smith County DA saw it differently.
The Music In You
The more psychologists investigate musicality, the more it seems that nearly all of us are musical experts, in quite a startling sense. You might not be a virtuoso, but you have remarkable music abilities. You just don’t know about them yet.
Iron Is The New Cholesterol
Oxygen and iron are essential for the production of energy, but may also conspire to destroy the delicate order of our cells. Elevated iron is at the center of a web of disease stretching from cancer to diabetes.
How A Dubious “Doctor” Became “The Most Quoted Human On The Planet”
Online, Steve Maraboli looks like the trope of a motivational speaker—photos of him speaking onstage, podcasts, apparent endorsements by celebrities, frequent mentions about best-selling books. He’s built his brand on an abundance of lies.
Three Years Of Misery Inside Google, The Happiest Company In Tech
In the first days of the Trump era, Google’s leaders were desperate to avoid confrontation with the new regime. The company’s history of close ties to the Obama administration left executives feeling especially vulnerable to the reactionary movement.
Ladies In Waiting
In the most memorable scene of the 2002 film Secretary, nothing happens. For over ten minutes, a period that represents entire days in the movie’s internal timeline, protagonist Lee remains faithfully immobile, wetting herself in the process. Waiting, which renders everything provisional, which suspends progress or conclusion of any kind, is worse than clarity.
The Convert: Life With A Jihadist
Tania Joya had been married to a jihadist from Texas for ten years, but she was tired of living like a nomad and unnerved by his increasingly extreme ideology. When he dragged their family to war-torn Syria, she knew it was time to get out.
Why We Fell For Clean Eating
The oh-so-Instagrammable food movement has been thoroughly debunked – but it shows no signs of going away. The real question is why we were so desperate to believe it.
How Our Home Delivery Habit Reshaped The World
The great trick of online retail has been to get us to do more shopping while thinking less about it – thinking less, in particular, about how our purchases reach our homes. This divorce of a product from its voyage to us is perhaps the thing that Amazon has sold us most successfully.
Inside Google’s Civil War
With its “Don’t be evil” mantra, Google was a central player in creating the rosy optimism of the tech boom. Some employees say Google is losing touch with that motto. What happens when an empowered tech workforce rebels?
The Professor, The Bikini Model And The Suitcase Full Of Trouble
A world-renowned physicist meets a gorgeous model online. They plan their perfect life together. But first, she asks, would he be so kind as to deliver a special package to her?