The history of “‘50s-era market-tested USDA White Pan Loaf No. 1.”

An unexplainable murder, double jeopardy, and military courts: the strange case of Tim Hennis.

On the ever-expanding world of targeted online advertising.

A writer’s trip home to Hot Springs, Arkansas, and the racetrack inextricably linked with the histories of his family and his hometown.

A profile of Robert Caro, who’s been working on a biography on Lyndon Johnson for nearly 40 years.

A profile of the Mexican newsweekly, a “lone voice” in reporting on the narcos.

On board the Perl Whirl 2000, a conference of hard-coding geeks on a luxury cruise ship.

An essay on the “history, meaning and practice of suicide, from third-century Christian death cults to the Aurora Bridge.”

On the Mexican drug cartel accused of laundering money with race horses.

A 7,000-word anatomy of the chaotic 9 minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court issued its health care ruling.

Inside a small town revived by an influx of immigrants and then destroyed by a Homeland Security raid.

How a group of men with nicknames like “Emperor” and “Spear Carrier” tipped the balance in South Sudan’s fight for independence.

A college president on the bizarre experience of being informed by NBC News that he had hired a war criminal to teach French.

The inside story of how an ABC nature shoot in Africa end up producing  a snuff film.

How an alcoholic doctor simultaneously saved his own life and made what could be the medical breakthrough of the century.

In the wake of 9/11, terrorist networks moved their recruitment and training efforts online, giving birth to Jihad-geeks like Irhabi_007.

Inside the real lives of people who came early to intentionally provoking, confusing, and generally screwing with strangers online.

Should modern medicine shift its end-of-life priorities, focusing less on staving off death and more on improving a patient’s last days?

Brian Hickey, a journalist who was induced into a coma after being left for dead following a hit and run accident, reports the story of his recovery.

A profile of Jon Stewart, who’s now run The Daily Show for more than a decade.

At three NYC comedy theater/schools, students and students-turned-instructors (a “benign pyramid scheme”) pursue the elusive simulacrum of human interaction that is longform improvisation.

If the fittest survive, why are so many people still depressed? An evolutionary theory on the benefits of painful rumination.

How two Italian teenagers hacked the Soviet space program and may have heard the dying breaths of a lost cosmonaut.

Published on the eve of Iran’s 2009 presidential election and subsequent protests, a look at the booze-fueled, hijab-less underground party scene in the capital.

A interview with John Pistole, head of the TSA.