The author of this piece played one of the world’s most popular and talked about video games (cf Premier League footballers mimicking its virtual dances in their real-world celebrations) and thinks he has discovered something about the way humans work.
An ambitious piece looking at observer selection effect – where a data set’s composition or properties are correlated with the very existence of its observer. The first example the piece calls on is an analysis of planes returning from WWII bombing raids with the goal of identifying which areas of the fuselage to reinforce, but it rapidly expands in scope to extinction events for our world, and our universe.
A piece looking at the history of computers through ideas, rather than through devices – tracing the path from Aristotelian logic to computer science.
A piece looking at the huge number of cognitive biases human beings are lumbered with, from a bias against evidence that counters our existing views, to prioritising rewards in the present over increased returns in the future.
A piece looking at a bitter fight amongst geologists, stemming from the assertion made by a Princeton academic that the so-called fifth extinction (the one that got the dinosaurs) “was caused not by an asteroid but by a series of colossal volcanic eruptions.” The debate is still relevant today, as scientists try to predict future extinction events that risk wiping us out.
The dizzying, multi-layered story of a huge pearl that has been at the centre of elaborate hoaxes, claims and counter-claims, and havoc in the lives of those connected to it for over 80 years. http://bit.ly/atlantic-pearl
How the CIA seeks to use the film industry to project its desired image.
Ta-Nehisi Coates on two ÔgodsÕ_Ñ_Michael Jackson and Kanye West, his own fortune Òto come of age in the last days of mysteryÓ before the social feed, fame, and America. As one reader puts it, the writing in this piece is Òbottled lightning.Ó http://bit.ly/atlantic-kanye
A hotly contested papyrus that refers to Jesus’ wife sent shockwaves through academic circles when it was discovered. Questions rapidly arose as to its authenticity, and investigations ended up in some very unexpected places. http://www.bit.ly/atlantic-jesus
A look inside a 2014 attempt to take power in the Gambia. http://www.bit.ly/atlantic-gambia