Jan/Feb 2013
How Wine Tasting is More -- and Less -- of a Scam Than You Thought
Labels, prices, reputations. They're as much a part of your wine-tasting experience as the juice itself.
The Power of the Gini Index
How an equation cooked up by Mussolini’s numbers guy came to define how we think about inequality—from Occupy Wall Street to the World Bank to the billionaires at Davos—and why it’s time to find a new way of looking at the numbers.
Fifty-Fifty: Whether to Test for Huntington's Disease
“I had no idea which of my parents carried the gene,” writer Mona Gable recounts. But the death of her brother led her to find out if she carried the marker.
Williston, North Dakota: Air Boomtown
Gulfstreams and Dassault Falcons crowd the skies over Williston, North Dakota.
Whose Body Is This?
Forensic scientists are working to identify the anonymous corpses of thousands of unlucky immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Busker Busker's Brad Moore on Superstar K3 and Korea's K-Pop Machine
Inside the Korean music machine
Why We Do What We Do
A letter from Sara Miller McCune, founder of the Miller-McCune Center and Pacific Standard.
What Virtual Reality Is About To Mean For Technology and Advertising
The psychologist Jeremy Bailenson’s quest to prepare us for the coming virtual world
The Other Health-Care Reform: Dental Programs
A new program could bring efficient, affordable dental care to the poor. Guess who's trying to stop it.
Live from New York, It’s Mozart and Strauss
Could simulcasts at your local theater save the high arts, or sink them?
The Physics of NASCAR
What Jimmie Johnson and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., owe to a PhD in the pit crew.
Books: The Republican Brain, Science Left Behind
The conservative war on science is an old trope, but apparently liberals have opened up a second front.
Why Music Communities Fight to Define Authenticity in Pop
From indie to rap to South Texas polka, music communities fight to define authenticity in pop
A Full Economic Recovery From the Recession is Nowhere in Sight
A full recovery is nowhere in sight. So beware economists who use a false dawn to push awful policies.
The Fuzzy Face of Climate Change
Advocates and scientists have tied the Earth’s fate to that of the polar bear. But what happens if this lumbering giant proves more resilient than the rest of us?
