The Social Life of Genes
“When it comes down to it, really, genes don’t make you who you are. Gene expression does. And gene expression varies depending on the life you live.”
“When it comes down to it, really, genes don’t make you who you are. Gene expression does. And gene expression varies depending on the life you live.”
David Dobbs Pacific Standard Sep 2013 25min Permalink
Undercover in an industrial slaughterhouse.
Previously: Conover discusses this story on the Longform Podcast.
Ted Conover Harper's May 2013 55min Permalink
In January, the body of a 17-year-old athlete was found in his high school’s gym. The authorities ruled it an accident. His friends and family aren’t convinced.
Jordan Conn Grantland Sep 2013 30min Permalink
Translation of an exclusive interview with Syrian President Bashar al_Assad:
“Have they not realised that since the Vietnam War, all the wars their predecessors have waged have failed? Have they not learned that they have gained nothing from these wars but the destruction of the countries they fought, which has had a destabilising effect on the Middle East and other parts of the world? Have they not comprehended that all of these wars have not made people in the region appreciate them or believe in their policies?”
Bashar al-Assad Izvestia Aug 2013 15min Permalink
Sarah Stillman is a staff writer for The New Yorker.
"People don't really care about issues so much as they care about the stories and the characters that bring those issues to life. ... A story needs an engine or something to propel you forward and it can't just be a collection of like, 'Oh hmm, this was interesting over here and this was interesting over there.' Realizing that helped me sit down with all my stuff on trafficking and labor abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan and say 'What are the five craziest things that I found here and how could I weave them together in a way that would actually have some forward motion?'"
Thanks to TinyLetter and Hulu Plus for sponsoring this week's episode.
Sep 2013 Permalink
They have lost five years of life expectancy and no one knows why.
Monica Potts The American Prospect Sep 2013 25min Permalink
The son of an American anthropologist returns to the Amazon to reunite with his mother, an indigenous tribeswoman.
William Kremer BBC News Magazine Aug 2013 20min Permalink
What prompts a woman to exit society and marry God? Inside a modern convent in Texas.
Alex Mar Oxford American Aug 2013 45min Permalink
How a group of serial entrepreneurs with an already impressive string of hits changed the way the world talks.
Toivo Tänavsuu Eesti Ekspress Jul 2013 25min Permalink
An account of the night last September when 15 Taliban, dressed as American soldiers, snuck onto one of the largest air bases in Afghanistan.
Matthieu Aikins GQ Sep 2013 25min Permalink
How real-time information can make you a better human.
Thomas Goetz Wired Jun 2011 25min Permalink
A profile of Claire Danes.
John Lahr New Yorker Sep 2013 30min Permalink
The legacy of a phantom bluesman.
Frank DiGiacomo Vanity Fair Nov 2008 35min Permalink
“Now Pynchon hides in plain sight, on the Upper West Side, with a family and a history of contradictions: a child of the postwar Establishment determined to reject it; a postmodernist master who’s called himself a ‘classicist’; a workaholic stoner; a polymath who revels in dirty puns; a literary outsider who’s married to a literary agent; a scourge of capitalism who sent his son to private school and lives in a $1.7 million prewar classic six.”
Boris Kachka New York Aug 2013 25min Permalink
Adventures with a group of young Hasidic men looking for God in psychedelic drugs.
Hamilton Morris Vice Sep 2008 15min Permalink
Life inside Za’atari, a camp for Syrian refugees just across the Jordanian border, where “the dispossession is absolute. Everyone has lost his country, his home, his equilibrium. Most have lost a family member or a friend. What is left is a kind of theatrical pride, the necessary performance of will.”
David Remnick New Yorker Aug 2013 30min Permalink
A history of humanitarian intervention.
Chris, a 25-year-old black man, tries to get a good job.
David Finkel Washington Post Nov 2006 20min Permalink
In search of the former boxing champ, who refuses to believe he has HIV.
Elizabeth Merrill ESPN Aug 2013 20min Permalink
A 55-year-old cold case ends with a conviction. But was justice really served?
Playing outside after dinner, best friends Kathy and Maria meet a man calling himself “Johnny.” Kathy runs home to grab mittens; upon her return, her 7-year-old friend and the stranger are nowhere to be found.
The story of Jack McCullough, once known as John Tessier, a man who once lived near Kathy and Maria and has a troubling history of abusing women.
Police zero in on McCullough after a deathbed confession.
Half a century after her friend was abducted, Kathy identifies the man who took Maria.
Jack McCullough is convicted of Maria’s kidnapping and murder, but questions are raised about the evidence (or lack thereof) presented at trial.
Ann O'Neill CNN Aug 2013 20min Permalink
“At first, there is only a little sound, a metallic ping, almost a click.”
Jean-Philippe Rémy Le Monde May 2013 10min Permalink
Three days on road with former chef and current rap eccentric Action Bronson.
Alex Pappademas Grantland Aug 2013 20min Permalink
This guide is sponsored by </i>The Internet Police: How Crime Went Online, and the Cops Followed</b></a>, the new book from Ars Technica Deputy Editor Nate Anderson.</p>
A excerpt from </i>The Internet Police is available on Longform. Already read it? Here's a collection of Nate's all-time favorite internet crime stories.
A well-crafted, in-depth profile of anarchist and Anonymous hacker Jeremy Hammond, who broke into the private intelligence company Stratfor and released millions of its e-mails. How does a talented kid from suburban Chicago end up facing federal charges in New York for hacking a company in Texas—and why did it seem worth doing? This piece provides a few answers.
Janet Reitman Rolling Stone Dec 2012 40min
I wrote this one, but I’m including it anyway because it was based on full transcripts of two FBI interrogations of suspected cybercriminals and provides a unique glimpse of exactly how agents talk and act when investigating internet crime. Sample quote: “The FBI does not fly us out here and we don’t break into your door to talk to you if we don’t have a substantial amount of evidence against you.” It also features one of the craziest (and poorly executed) blackmail plots you’ll ever find.
Nate Anderson Ars Techica Apr 2013 20min
Swatting—faking phone calls to local cops in an effort to have them send a SWAT team to a victim’s home—has become a national problem, with hundreds of cases a year. This 2008 piece profiles one of the most extreme swatters, a young blind kid from Boston.
Kevin Poulsen Wired Feb 2008 20min
The recent revelations that the new Miss Teen USA was being surreptitiously watched by a hacker accessing her computer’s webcam stirred up renewed interest in the practice. Using Remote Administration Tools (RATs), hackers with minimal skill can now infiltrate the webcams, microphones, and files of computer users around the world—and whole forums exist in which the hackers share techniques and pictures of their “slaves.” This piece profiles one of the highest-profile hackers caught to date, a disabled California man called Luis Mijangos. What really sets the story apart is the author interview with Mijangos, who explains why he did it.
David Kushner GQ Jan 2012 20min
What happens when a nation-state embraces the techniques of criminal hackers to target Iranian centrifuges? You get a custom-made virus like Stuxnet, for one thing, and this piece explores the virus, its operation, and its discovery.<hr>Longform is proudly sponsored this week by The Internet Police: How Crime Went Online, and the Cops Followed. Buy it today.
Michael Joseph Gross Vanity Fair Apr 2011 30min
Feb 2008 – Apr 2013 Permalink
Meet Alan Chambers, former leader of Exodus International–a “pray the gay away” ministry.
David Peisner Buzzfeed Aug 2013 25min Permalink
On the hanging of James Murphy, murderer.
Lafcadio Hearn The Cincinnati Commercial Aug 1876 20min Permalink