A profile of Justin Timberlake:

This need to succeed, to become his generation’s multi-talented Sammy Davis Jr., is part of what makes him appealing to filmmakers. “I needed someone who could be a Frank Sinatra figure, someone who could walk into the room and command all the attention,” says David Fincher, of casting Timberlake as Sean Parker, the Facebook investor and rogue, in The Social Network. “I didn’t want someone who would just say, ‘I know how to play groovy.’ You can’t fake that stuff. That’s the problem with making movies about a rock star—actors have spent their lives auditioning and getting rejected, and rock stars haven’t.”

On the history and study of pica:

Indeed, we have long defined ourselves and others by what we do and do not eat, from kashrut dietary restrictions described in Leviticus to the naming of Comanche bands (Kotsoteka—buffalo eaters, Penateka—honey eaters, Tekapwai—no meat) to insults—French frogs, English limeys, German krauts. But poya seemed to beg a different question: what was one to make of people who ate food that wasn’t food at all?

Why Whitney is Lucy, only less lovable:

This may sound like blasphemy to anyone who loves Lucille Ball, the woman who pioneered the classic joke rhythms that Whitney Cummings so klutzily mimics. Cummings has none of Ball’s shining charisma or her buzz of anarchy. Yet she does share Lucy’s rictus grin, her toddler-like foot-stamping tantrums, and especially her Hobbesian view of heterosexual relationships as a combat zone of pranks, bets, and manipulation from below. “This is war,” Whitney announces, before declaring yet another crazy scheme to undercut her boyfriend, and it might as well be the series’ catchphrase.

A bungled operation in Honduras and the enduring ineffectiveness of America’s war on drugs.

Summiting one of the world’s toughest peaks gave Julian Torres something an IED blast in Afghanistan had taken away.

Across the world, millions of displaced Syrians have been met with hesitation and hostility. Not in Canada.

An investigation into the abuse and neglect of adults with disabilities in Illinois.

Throughout their troubled lives, identical twins William and Chris Cormier shared a preternatural bond. Then the body of a Florida journalist ended up in their backyard.

On Julian Jaynes, a Princeton psychologist who told the story of how humans learned to think.

A profile of DJ Larry Levan, whose sets at New York’s Paradise Garage in the 80s had an almost religious appeal.

A profile of Chuck Blazer, “the man who built — and bilked — American soccer.”

On mirror-touch synethesia, the power (or curse) of knowing exactly how others feel.

On the underground economy of full-service Southern California apartment complexes marketed to Chinese birth-tourists.

Explaining a radical shift in the way some of New York’s best restaurants do business.

The definitive story of a ubiquitous software. PowerPoint’s origins, its evolution, and its mind-boggling impact on corporate culture.

Early last year, 10 churches were torched in East Texas. The culprits? Two Baptist teens having a crisis of faith.

What it means to become a superpower while three quarters of the population lives on less than fifty cents per day—four scenes from India in transition.

A report from the Central African Republic, where "acts of extraordinary cruelty have become commonplace."

Seth Rogen, Amy Pascal, and the inside story of Sony’s hacking saga.

Truancy is punishable by fines, probation, and in some cases throwing parents in prison. Does any of that really keep kids in school?

Notes from a never-finished biography of the neurologist, humanist and writer.

On stolen bicycles, “a solvent in America’s underground economy, a currency in the world of drug addicts and petty thieves.”

A year with Major Steve Beck as he takes on the most difficult duty of his career: casualty notification.

A profile of the Hollywood star-maker behind Vanna White, Pamela Anderson and Jenny McCarthy.

The secret is an exclusive 22-year-old archive of viewer-submitted clips.