Nov/Dec 2013

What you need to know about The Naked Society, Thank You for Your Service, and Do Muslim Women Need Saving?

• By Pacific Standard Staff

At its best, fan fiction blurs the lines between reading and writing and consuming and creating, and makes pop culture speak to a greater range of experiences.

• By Laura Miller

Embarrassed consumers tend to spend more money on "appearance-enhancing items," according to new research.

• By Tom Jacobs

Tiny numbers, big impacts.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

In every issue, we fix our gaze on an everyday photograph and chase down facts about details in the frame.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

Why are ground squirrels thriving in the former gold mining town of Bodie, California?

• By Melinda Burns

Everyone knows computers are good at processing information and humans are good at creativity. What if it's the other way around?

• By Chris V. Nicholson

Keeping an eye on the (very profitable) ball.

• By Tom Jacobs

There's a name for that.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

Only three percent of shelters nationwide can accommodate domestic animals, and many people refuse to leave them behind.

• By Kathryn Joyce

Fifty years ago 180,000 whales disappeared from the oceans without a trace, and researchers are still trying to make sense of why. Inside the most irrational environmental crime of the century.

• By Charles Homans

Does having a better mental-health system lead to higher suicide rates?

• By Tom Jacobs

Meet Nadine Nofziger, a 63-year-old operations manager.

• By Ryan O'Hanlon

For cybercriminals, everything hangs on a nickname.

• By Jonathan Lusthaus

Armed with happiness studies, a new book makes a hedonistic case for virtuous urbanism.

• By Daniel Brook

As CEO of Intrade, John Delaney harnessed the wisdom of the crowds, with often freakishly prescient results. Technocratic dreamers were ecstatic about the company's ability to predict the future, and maybe even reshape society. Today Delaney's company has collapsed and his body is entombed atop Mount Everest. A tale of bravado, bluster, and efficient markets.

• By Graeme Wood

How much is enough certainty to make a decision about life or death, sickness or health?

• By Bonnie Tsui

Recent and ongoing research on our privacy paradoxes.

• By Chris Berdik

Will an Obamacare anti-obesity tactic make things worse?

• By Melinda Wenner Moyer

Thanks to decades of stagnant wages and the Great Recession, more than half of American working-class households are at risk of being unable to sustain their standard of living past retirement. Duncan Black is trying to change that.

• By David Dayen

Meet Dave Ramsey, the most important personal finance guru in America. Millions of people follow his biblically inspired advice. It goes like this: 1. Purge yourself of debt; 2. Live on cash; 3. Pretend economic trends don't affect you; 4. Blame yourself when they do.

• By Helaine Olen

From Perspectives on Progress to 3-D Printing: Destiny, Doom, or Dream?, academic gatherings you should be aware of.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

From the Supreme Court-mandated date for California to relieve prison overcrowding to the New York City Marathon, events you should be aware of.

• By Pacific Standard Staff

The names and numbers behind the research in the November/December 2013 issue of Pacific Standard.

• By Pacific Standard Staff