A profile of Avishek Sengupta, who drowned at the Walk the Plank obstacle during an endurance race last year.

Did the Obama Administration ignore evidence that someone other than Assad could be behind the sarin attacks?

How the Syrian president stays in power.

The author gets a crash course in health care pricing after having his urethra fixed.

A filmmaker goes to court to fight the television commercial break.

A profile of computational biologist Eric Schadt, the guy who’s figuring out what comes next after the Human Genome Project.

21,000 words on the watchers and watched.

On the lifestyle of a fugitive retiree, and how it came to an end.

The story of the Delmar family, told through what they watch on TV.

A culture war is raging between the people diversifying science fiction and the men who’d like to roll that back.

The former governor of Massachusetts wants to remove the stigma from electric shock treatments. They saved Kitty’s life.

The adventures and controversies of the avant-garde poet Kenneth Goldsmith, who believes plagiarism is an art form.

The history of canis lupus in America, up to the present day.

A secret meeting, and short Q&A, with the drug lord while he was still on the lam.

“After 14 years I finally reported him. In the eyes of the law, my biggest mistake was not fearing him more.”

The inside story, involving low ratings, new ownership, suspected leaks, and a mandate that Meet the Press “loosen up.”

A weekend with the only person on Earth who can survive five venomous snakebites in 48 hours.

How a high-powered lawyer and a rough-edged private detective ended up at the center of the biggest, dirtiest scandal in Hollywood history.

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

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

Both the Chinese government and private matchmakers are laboring to unite people who lost spouses and children in the earthquake.

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

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.