In the early 1800s, in southwestern Germany, outbreaks of a mysterious illness spread throughout the countryside. People who came down with it had terrible symptoms. Their eyelids would droop. Their speech would slur. They’d be gripped by a paralysis that, once it reached their breathing muscles, could be fatal.  A young doctor named Justinus Kerner […]

For the past quarter century, the future of monarch butterflies has looked dire, with these iconic American insects flitting toward extinction. Now, however, there is at least a small reason for hope: New data from WWF Mexico, a large conservation group, offers further evidence that the decline of eastern monarchs — the world’s largest population — has […]

This morning, Joe Kent — the director of the National Counterterrorism Center — resigned in protest over the war in Iran. “I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war,” he said in a resignation letter addressed to Trump and published on X. You’d think that a war critic like myself should welcome this development. The […]

To its fiercest critics, “populism” is a politics of mindless resentment: The populist’s animating ambition is not to help people in general — or the downtrodden in particular — so much as to hurt some vilified elite. If afflicting the comfortable also requires discomforting the afflicted, so be it.  Personally, I think this is wildly […]

Where would humanity be without our mild delusion? Many of the technologies we take for granted, from the light bulb to iPhones, would cease to exist without relentless resolve. Stephen King, rejected dozens of times, persisted and became one of the world’s top-selling authors. Any entrepreneur maintains a bit of in the face of the staggering […]