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.
Straight from the pages of a Cold War thriller, this is the story of Konstantin Kilimnik, the long time right-hand man to Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign Chairman. Kilimnik is now believed to have been an asset of Russian intelligence for a significant portion of his career as a consultant to a range of figures in international politics and business. Robert Mueller’s enquiry charged him on June 8th with two charges relating to obstruction of justice. For more on his former boss Manafort, see these from previous Journal editions (bit.ly/atlantic-manafort & bit.ly/slate-manafort).
A piece looking at the history of computers through ideas, rather than through devices – tracing the path from Aristotelian logic to computer science.
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.
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
A look inside a 2014 attempt to take power in the Gambia. http://www.bit.ly/atlantic-gambia
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 at an unflinchingly brutal fungal parasite that invades the abdomens of cicadas, turning them into “flying saltshakers of death” when they then fly around releasing spores from the fungus on to their brethren on the ground. The cicadas’ obliviousness to the catastrophic loss of their bottoms is perhaps explained by the fact that the fungus has been found to contain psychedelics and amphetamines.
The story of man’s uneasy relationship with the moon, culminating in planned nuclear attacks on it by both Soviet and American governments during the Cold War. http://www.bit.ly/atlantic-moon