The Death of a Jewish Superhero Creator
…Green Lantern, Spider Man, Captain America-all of them, it turns out, were Jewish creations. As Alan Oirich, a scholar of the field, told me, “the list of early comic-book pioneers…
What if the thing we call “talent” is grotesquely overrated? And what if deliberate practice is the secret to excellence? Those are the claims of the research psychologist Anders Ericsson,…
What happened when the Rooney Rule made its way from pro football to corporate America? Some progress, some backsliding, and a lot of controversy. (Second in a two-part series.)…
Claudia Goldin is the newest winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Steve spoke to her in 2021 about how inflexible jobs and family responsibilities make it harder for women…
…where he helped build tools to track the spread of Covid-19. But things haven’t always come easily for him. Steve Levitt talks to Kwon about his debilitating childhood anxieties, his…
Avi Loeb is a Harvard astronomer who argues that we’ve already encountered extraterrestrial technology. His approach to the search for interstellar objects is scientific, but how plausible is his argument?
The restaurant business model is warped: kitchen wages are too low to hire cooks, while diners are put in charge of paying the waitstaff. So what happens if you eliminate…
…Green Lantern, Spider Man, Captain America-all of them, it turns out, were Jewish creations. As Alan Oirich, a scholar of the field, told me, “the list of early comic-book pioneers…
…meteorology,” says CEO Bill Kirk, a former U.S. Air Force Captain with a degree from Rutgers in meteorology. Kirk began working on the WTI algorithm while in the Air Force….
…In Louisiana, a man showing us a Civil War pistol once owned by a relative paused to say thoughtfully, “I sure hope Captain So-And-So got himself some Yankees with this.”…
…day he loses money. If you’re Captain Ahab, there’s only one way this story ends: Moby Dick kills you. Every good trader I know is infinitely humble. B) News arbitrage….
The man who wants America to “think harder” has parlayed his quixotic presidential campaign into front-runner status in New York’s mayoral election. And he has some big plans….
Relocating halfway across the world is hard enough for humans. For pets it can require a specialist. Zachary Crockett waits at the airport, holding a sign saying “Fluffy.”…
…a caricature of what flying is really like, in the process undercutting the value of our profession. “Aw, shucks,” says a captain, “this plane practically lands itself.” That’s a bit…
Also: Is there a downside to billionaire philanthropy?…
If you can make it through three years of law school, you too might end up on a billboard. Zachary Crockett makes the case.
…that it would. 2. What a great job my wife had done in making small talk about her childhood in Texas (her father had been a Republican precinct captain, and…
Bren Smith, who grew up fishing and fighting, is now part of a movement that seeks to feed the planet while putting less environmental stress on it. He makes his…
In most countries, houses get more valuable over time. In Japan, a new buyer will often bulldoze the home. We’ll tell you why.
…way to help edge him closer to his 2009 numbers, and that fine balance of honoring the Captain while not going overboard is in check. At some point, Jeter, like…
The political debates over immigration can generate a lot of fuzzy facts. We wanted to test Americans’ knowledge — so, to wrap up our special series on immigration, we called…
For soccer fans, it’s easy. For the rest of us? Not so much, especially since the U.S. team didn’t qualify. So here’s what to watch for even if you have…
…is no doubt this announcement is a complete waste of time, but not long after the post went up, Captain Sullenberger pulled off a water landing. Thanks for nothing, Sully!)…
…is beginning to turn, and I can only hope that we will eventually stop sacrificing the world’s poor at the altar of radical environmentalism. Rudy Maisto Rudy Maisto, captain of…
For years, whale oil was used as lighting fuel, industrial lubricant, and the main ingredient in (yum!) margarine. Whale meat was also on a few menus. But today, demand for…
In a special episode of The Economics of Everyday Things, host Zachary Crockett explains what millennials do to show they care, how corrugated cardboard keeps your food warm, and why…
In 2016, David Cameron held a referendum on whether the U.K. should stay in the European Union. A longtime Euroskeptic, he nevertheless led the Remain campaign. So what did Cameron…
Adam Smith famously argued that specialization is the key to prosperity. In the N.F.L., the long snapper is proof of that argument. Just in time for the Super Bowl, here’s…
…offered a last location of the ships (including the captain) but the locations varied by as much as 100 miles, so most assumed they were lying, and none of the…
Caitlin Doughty is a mortician who would like to put herself out of business. Our corporate funeral industry, she argues, has made us forget how to offer our loved ones…
The restaurant business model is warped: kitchen wages are too low to hire cooks, while diners are put in charge of paying the waitstaff. So what happens if you eliminate…
