Ideas

Science & Technology

Song of Our Cells

Though a mystery to Darwin in his lifetime, the constant mutation of our genes is what allows for life’s magnificent diversity.

July 23, 2026 issue

Mark O’Connell

Space Oddity

Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff’s Muskism examines how Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, by selling a vision of the future that very few people would want to inhabit.

July 23, 2026 issue

Jenny Uglow

Wonder & Disillusion

The naturalist George Forster was fascinated by plants and animals, but he was also driven by a passionate belief in the rights of all people regardless of race, gender, or social status.

July 23, 2026 issue

Meghan O’Gieblyn

‘We Did Our Best!’

Metaphors of parenting have defined our understanding of AI, but lately the parent-child relationship between creator and machine is becoming reversed.

June 25, 2026 issue

Dan Chiasson

Think for Yourself

One of the most dehumanizing effects of AI is the short cuts it offers through the gaps and impasses intrinsic to the act of writing.

June 25, 2026 issue

Jonathan Mingle

Our Climate’s Wild Card

Methane’s part in the climate crisis remains largely overlooked, even though it is responsible for 30 percent of all global warming to date, and despite the fact that it’s still possible to purge it from our skies.

June 11, 2026 issue

Ben Tarnoff

Whither the Nerd-Bully?

Bill Gates was the monopolistic father figure who Silicon Valley’s young founders rebelled against—and, in so rebelling, became.

May 28, 2026 issue

M.W. Feldman and Jessica Riskin

Not in Your Genome

Generations of “sociobiologists” have tried and failed to argue that genetic analysis offers the key to understanding social inequality. A new book fares no better.

June 11, 2026 issue

Artificial Intelligence

James Gleick

The Parrot in the Machine

The artificial intelligence industry depends on plagiarism, mimicry, and exploited labor, not intelligence.

July 24, 2025 issue

Ben Tarnoff

The Labor Theory of AI

Artificial intelligence may be the first attempt to automate and discipline human labor that even its creators don’t fully comprehend.

March 27, 2025 issue

Jessica Riskin

A Sort of Buzzing Inside My Head

Whether ChatGPT passes the Turing Test is a less troubling question than what Alan Turing meant by “intelligence.”

June 25, 2023

Tim Parks

DeepL Edizioni

As machine translation software grows more sophisticated, could it entirely replace human translators?

March 22, 2023

Oliver Sacks

A selection of Oliver Sacks’s contributions to the New York Review. Read all of his pieces here.

Oliver Sacks

Speak, Memory

February 21, 2013 issue

Oliver Sacks

First Love

October 18, 2001 issue

Oliver Sacks

The Autist Artist

April 25, 1985 issue

Oliver Sacks

The Feeling of Disorder

April 23, 2015 issue

Oliver Sacks

The Mental Life of Plants and Worms

April 24, 2014 issue

Oliver Sacks

The Bull on the Mountain

June 28, 1984 issue

The Latest

Rosa Lyster

This Bitter Earth

The world’s salt lakes are the canary in the coal mine for the climate crisis, and they are shrinking at a drastic rate.

May 14, 2026 issue

Caroline Fraser

The Throwaway Planet

Three books raise political and moral questions about human consumption—and the value we place on those who clean up the waste.

April 23, 2026 issue

Dan Rockmore

In Defense of Algebra

The mathematician Paul Lockhart believes to his core that math is the purest of the arts, and anyone can learn to love it.

April 9, 2026 issue

Alec Wilkinson

The Wandering Physicist

Luis Alvarez brought a scientific pragmatism to many of the twentieth century’s greatest mysteries, including the secrets of pyramids, the Kennedy assassination, and the disappearance of the dinosaurs.

March 12, 2026 issue

Ian Tattersall

Call Me by Your Names

The quest to fathom the riotous diversity of nature is absorbingly told in a virtual double biography of the great taxonomist Carl Linnaeus and his contemporary, the count of Buffon.

February 26, 2026 issue

Jenny Uglow

All That Glitters

The science of gemstones has always been intertwined with their value as luxury items.

February 12, 2026 issue

Ian Frazier

Bang the Drumstick Slowly

About 26 billion chickens occupy Earth, but apart from the lucky ones in backyards, most are condemned to the hellscape that is industrial farming.

February 12, 2026 issue

Bill McKibben

It’s a Gas

There have been five great mass extinctions on Earth: four have been the result of carbon dioxide flooding into the atmosphere and raising the temperature.

January 15, 2026 issue

Clair Wills

Blood Work

A rare genetic mutation is best treated the nineteenth-century way, with bloodletting, showing up the strengths and weaknesses of the NHS.

January 15, 2026 issue

Pria Anand

The Plague That Won’t Die

As my recent diagnosis shows, tuberculosis is not a relic of medical history. It remains the leading infectious cause of death worldwide—and America is hardly immune.

December 18, 2025 issue