Unleash The Mississippi

Boyce Upholt | Hakai | 12th July 2022

The Mississippi — a massive river that drains "32 US states and two Canadian provinces, from Alberta to New York to New Mexico" — has for centuries been restricted to suit commercial interests. Now, its ecologically vital delta is facing unprecedented land loss and the proposed solution is artificially to free the stream's course, which could have its own negative consequences (5,628 words)

Our Technology Sickness

Micah Goodman | Sources | 30th May 2022

Thoughts on technology addiction from a scholar of Judaism. "Our lives are being transformed by three grand bargains. The intellectual bargain: we have more knowledge but less capacity to concentrate and focus. The social bargain: we are much more available but much less attentive. And most importantly, the emotional bargain: we are much more connected, but much less empathetic" (4,218 words)

Rev Richard Coles And Richard Dawkins

Sam Wollaston | Guardian | 31st July 2022

Discussion between two people destined to disagree: Dawkins, atheist scientist, and Coles, Church of England vicar. They cover the gospels, HIV, music, Darwin, and much more. What emerges is a conflict between feelings and facts, but there is still the possibility of accord. As Dawkins says: "You’re the kind of vicar who is much harder to argue with because that’s a reasonable point" (1,254 words)

Dialling The Moon

Peter Hitchens | The Lamp | 14th July 2022

Memoir of a life spent worrying about the telephone. Saddest of all is this anecdote, about helping a stranger check if his handset is functioning. "I was not sure afterwards whether this increased or lessened his misery, but the encounter made me think less of myself and has done ever since. Had I condemned others in my life to wait by telephones that did not ring?" (1,693 words)

Playing Carnegie Hall

Jay Nordlinger | New Criterion Dispatch | 28th July 2022

Ask any musician: The acoustics in Carnegie Hall in New York are superb, whether the auditorium is sold out or empty. "The hall is reverb-y, but not soupy. It is clear and crisp, but not dry". Which raises some practical questions. Are the acoustics in Carnegie Hall so good by accident or by design? In either case, why do other designers of other concert halls not simply copy this examplar? (800 words)

More Life

Hannah Black | Jewish Currents | 1st July 2022

Thought-provoking discussion of Couples Therapy, Showtime's reality-television series which follows the work of New York psychoanalyst Orna Guralnik. "Orna, like a priestly intermediary between action and interiority, offers the promise of absolution. When her patients arrive at their innermost parts, it seems as though she’s been waiting there for them all along, like a chthonic god" (3,300 words)

On Sundays, Browser readers receive a special edition with puzzles, poems, books, charts, music and more - plus selections from our decade-plus archive of the finest writing on the internet. Here's a taste of this week's edition.

Image Of The Week

Honeybee Collaboration

Seasons and the natural rhythms of honeybees determine much of Ava Roth’s practice, which hinges on collaborating with the bees. The Ontario-based artist stitches elaborate embroideries with beads and intricate thread-based motifs that, once her contribution is complete, she turns over to her insect counterparts, who embed her work in golden, hexagonal honeycomb — Colossal

Poem Of The Week

Dream In Which My Body Is A Snow Storm
A.D. Lauren-Abunassar | Poetry Foundation  2020

and doesn’t make anyone cold. If I fell I would fall
in state-shaped flakes. One for every place my body
lingered. One for every little bit of light I stole
and kept. No cars startless. No tangled up roadways. Neck
becoming mountain of drift; foot becoming fierce kicking
eddies. Heat would not melt me. Hands would not help
me undo. Blanketing softly. Whimsy not pretend.
Dream in which my body is a snowstorm and the storm says
a purpose in falling.

continue reading at Poetry Foundation

The Browser Sunday edition is a smorgasbord of delights. If you enjoyed this taster, subscribe for puzzles, crosswords, art, charts, articles and more each Sunday - plus five articles daily, in your inbox:

Why So Many Bikes End Up Underwater

Jody Rosen | Guardian | 28th July 2022

Some bicycles end up in canals by accident. Cyclists get lost at night, or in fog, and steer off towpaths. Drunk cyclists fall from bridges. Throwing a bicycle into a canal is "a specialised sport, which offers its own peculiar satisfactions". But one way or another, especially in Paris and Amsterdam, where canals have to be periodically dredged for drowned bikes, a whole lot of bikes end up in canals (3,800 words)

The Dystopia Of San Paulo

Nicola Abé | Der Spiegel  25th July 2022

Portrait of São Paulo in Brazil, home to 22 million people, the largest metropolis in the southern hemisphere, the wealthiest city in South America, and one of the most unequal cities in the world. The rich travel by private helicopter while the city council puts boulders under bridges to displace rough sleepers. "Society here has failed miserably in making a dignified life possible for everyone" (4,400 words)

Is Everything Getting Old?

Byrne Hobart | The Diff | 25th July 2022

The US Senate is the oldest ever; the speaker of the House is 82; the President is a 77-year-old who beat out a 74-year-old. And it isn't only politics that seems age-blocked. In the 14 years between 2005 and 2019 the average age of a Fortune 500 CEO rose by 14 years; similar story in scientific research. Are older people staying fitter and smarter for longer — or just getting better at hanging on? (1,800 words)

James Lovelock at 100

Gaia Vince | New Scientist | 24th July 2019

Obituaries abound today for Lovelock, who has died at 103, but this interview with New Scientist (and how Lovelock must have smiled at his interviewer's name) captures much of Lovelock's delightful character in his own words. His opening remark, while serving iced coffee: "A chunk of ice cools the coffee 80 times more effectively than the equivalent volume of water at 0 degrees" (1,900 words)

Links Between Smell And Memory

Roxanne Khamsi | Nature | 22nd June 2022

Notes towards a scientific explanation of why smells can trigger distant memories and the emotions associated with them. It may go back to the womb. One theory holds that the chemical signatures of the amniotic fluid surrounding an unborn baby may be echoed in the mother's body-scent — which is why the newborn baby will instinctively favour its mother's smell over any other smell (2,600 words)

Forer Statements

Scott Alexander | Astral Codex Ten | 26th July 2022

Explaining the Forer Effect, a technique used by astrologers, psychics and interrogators to win a person's trust by making assertions about the person's character which appear to be deeply insightful but which could, in fact, apply to almost anyone. For example: "You have a great need for other people to like and admire you"; "Security is one of your major goals in life" (1,400 words)

Hispaniola's Great Divergence

Craig Palsson | Fitzwilliam | 24th July 2022

Why is Haiti the poorest country in the Western hemisphere? Comparison with Haiti's neighbour, the Dominican Republic, suggests that the causes go back to the closing of the Haitian economy to foreigners after independence in 1804, and soil exhaustion on small family farms created by land redistribution. These encouraged political instability, which deterred tourism and investment (3,020 words)

The Giraffe, A Supposedly Composite Creature

Victor Mair | Language Log | 24th July 2022

The English word "giraffe" comes from the Arabic zarāfah, meaning "fast walker", which derives in turn from the ancient Persian zurnāpā, a portmanteau of "flute" and "leg". Until the late 16th century the giraffe was known in England as the "camelopard", echoing its ancient Greek name, kamēlopárdalis, and the middle-Persian equivalent, šotorgâvpalang, or “camel-ox-leopard” (2,066 words)

Browser Bites explores a new idea each day, in under a minute. Join Uri Bram, Sebastian Park (@SebPark), and guests as they blitz through an idea in less time than it takes to brush your teeth.

Browser Bites

Browser Bites explores a new idea each day, in under a minute. Join Uri Bram (Publisher of The Browser), Sebastian Park (@SebPark), and guests as they blitz through an idea in less time than it takes to brush your teeth.

How To Be Influenced

Ian Leslie | The Ruffian | 23rd July 2022

In a world of online influencers we are all going to be influenced. "For almost every decision we have to take, bidders line up to take the contract". The trick lies in turning this to your advantage. "Be impervious to social influence and you get closed off from the best that your fellow humans have to offer. Be defenceless against it and you become manipulable, boring, and unhappy" (2,800 words)

A Midsummer On Ice

Fridtjof Nansen | Lapham's Quarterly | 22nd July 2022

Extracts from the diary of Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen, written in June 1894 while Nansen was waiting for ice floes to carry his ship towards the North Pole. "Life is one incessant hurrying from one task to another. Life’s peace is said to be found by holy men in the desert. Here there is desert enough; but peace — of that I know nothing. I suppose it is the holiness that is lacking" (1,990 words)

The Maintenance Race

Stewart Brand | Works In Progress | 22nd July 2022

Lessons learned from the 1968 Sunday Times round-the-word solo yacht race in which Donald Crowhurst went mad and vanished; Bernard Moitessier abandoned the course within sight of an easy victory; the winner was the only finisher, Robin Knox-Johnson. Moitessier's advice: "Choose what is simple without hesitation; sooner or later, what is complicated will always lead to problems" (7,300 words)

Raphael Between Heaven And Earth

Michael Glover | Hyperallergic | 6th July 2022

I could wish this piece were ten times as long. A eulogy to Raphael and to the exhibition of Raphael's masterworks which has opened in London after years of delay. "He was boundlessly ambitious and intimidatingly energetic, charming, good-looking, diplomatic, and utterly opportunistic ... His industriousness, and the consistent quality of his output, were superhuman" (1,100 words)

Why We Don’t Remember Pandemics

Mark Honigsbaum | Engelsberg Ideas | 19th July 2022

The millions who died in World War One are remembered in countless memorials. The millions who died afterwards of Spanish Flu are remembered almost nowhere. There is some logic in this: The war-dead are being offered as role models. But in memorialising the war-dead we also remind ourselves of the terrors and costs of war. We should memorialise our pandemic-dead in that same spirit (1,150 words)

from The Browser five years ago

Is Productivity Growth Becoming Irrelevant?

Adair Turner | INET | 21st July 2017

Yes. As a limit-case imagine that a hundred years from now solar-powered robots deliver most goods and services. The cost of this will be trivial — and so, therefore, will be the contribution to measurable GDP. Almost all measurable GDP will come from impossible-to-automate domains such as rent and royalties. “Productivity growth will be close to nil, but also irrelevant to human welfare” (1,009 words)