There is an unexpected irony that comes with publishing a book. You spend years scouring the Earth for stories; then the book comes out, and the stories start coming to you.
All summer, people from all over the world have been sending me unforgettable stories of human behavior in near-death experiences. Some of these stories arrived in private email messages that I can't share; others are embedded in the comments on this site; and many more are floating in the ether, in blogs, articles and on TV. Check out this TV News segment that aired last…
Continue Reading »
What I like most about Tom Vanderbilt’s new book, Traffic, is that it takes us on a tour of our most cherished delusions. We all think we are better drivers than we are (yes, even you); we estimate the odds of our next accident by reflecting on the number of crashes we’ve been in before (not the number of near misses we’ve had); and the safer we feel (in SUVs, say, or on straight roads on clear, dry days), the worse we drive, and the more accidents we have.
It reminds me a lot of how…
Continue Reading »
Here’s my latest TIME article about the new developments in the anthrax case. The FBI has released a slew of documents related to the case. And they make a compelling case for why Bruce Ivins was a suspect in the attacks.
But just as revealing as the documents are what the FBI did not release. We still do not know any details of the mysterious and fantastic new science that the government says it used to link the anthrax used in the attacks to anthrax used by Ivins. We…
Continue Reading »
We have all heard stories about atrocious tragedies in which no one did anything to help anyone (i.e. the soul-crushing story Kitty Genovese, which is actually a little more complicated than the legend that has grown up around it).
But the more common response looks more like this story from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, in which a random group of bystanders rushed into a burning van to rescue five disabled passengers before the vehicle burst into flames. Heroism is a lot more prosaic than we think. *Special thanks to Thomas for sending…
Continue Reading »
I just got back from Frederick, MD, the town that has become the epicenter of the anthrax investigation. (Twice!) The latest developments in this strange and seemingly endless mystery are dizzying to the point of nauseating.
Basically, the FBI’s latest suspect killed himself last week in Frederick, before any charges had been filed. So the story broke before the feds were ready to go public. The end result was a great, gaping void. While the FBI waited to get clearance to make its evidence public, reporters speculated, officials leaked and scientists…
Continue Reading »
subscribe
