Today, artificial intelligence and information technologies have absorbed many of the questions that were once taken up by theologians and philosophers: the mind’s relationship to the body, the question of free will, the possibility of immortality.

A profile of Chris Evans, star of the upcoming Captain America:

At this point, which was a…number of drinks in, it was easy to forget that it really was an interview, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't cross my mind that something might happen (and that we'd go to the Oscars and get married and have babies forever until we died?). But there was always the question of how much of it was truly Chris Evans, and whom I should pretend to be in response.

Few men have acquired so scandalous a reputation as did Basil Zaharoff, alias Count Zacharoff, alias Prince Zacharias Basileus Zacharoff, known to his intimates as “Zedzed.” Born in Anatolia, then part of the Ottoman Empire, perhaps in 1849, Zaharoff was a brothel tout, bigamist and arsonist, a benefactor of great universities and an intimate of royalty who reached his peak of infamy as an international arms dealer -- a “merchant of death,” as his many enemies preferred it.

On the insane business of bottled water.

Meet the smokejumpers of America.

Memories of a college courtship.

A profile of the vice president.

On the craft of reporting poverty.

A history of food poisoning.

The life and times of Willie Nelson’s guitar.

An explanation of enduring distaste.

On the brick stackers of Chicago.

Inside the world of high-priced online reputation management.

The last days of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

The undoing of Tina Brown.

A history of the celebrity profile.

On the decline of America.

A memoir of Santa Cruz.

The surprising papacy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Navigating the alligator-infested rivers of North Florida.

The rise and fall of travel writing.

The story of an American myth.

The reverberations of an avalanche.

A profile of Nicki Minaj.

The dilemma of the prison nursery.