Arlene S. Kanter (Syracuse): The Law: What's Disability Studies Got to Do with It or An Introduction to Disability Legal Studies. Erin Murphy (NYU): DNA and the Fifth Amendment. From Wired, welcome to the Brave New World of persuasion profiling; and Y Combinator is boot camp for startups. Positive Black Swans: Tim Harford on how to fund research so that it generates insanely great ideas, not pretty good ones. Does Washington care about the economy anymore? The recovery needs help but Congress doesn't want to pitch in. A review of Fairness, Responsibility, and Welfare by Marc Fleurbaey. Does depression help us think better? Jonah Lehrer investigates. Hail to the Tyrant: A review of Executive Unbound: After the Madisonian Republic by Eric Posner and Adrian Vermeule. What caused the death of Alexander the Great? The most decadent Emperor of all: Is it possible to find out the truth about Elagabalus, teenage despot of Rome? In Area 51, Annie Jacobsen reveals top government secrets about what really happened at the site and how she first heard about it (and more and more). The United States is now fighting a new kind of war, deceiving and confusing the enemy with cyberweapons; the battle began with two admirals who secretly drew up the battle plans and fired the first shots. Why we all love a Victorian murder: Sexual repression, dark alleys, great detectives, ornate prose — no wonder the 19th century is our template for crime fiction. How can we insulate ourselves from conflicts of interest? The most popular solution, disclosing them, turns out not to help. A review of The Ragged Edge of the World: Encounters at the Frontier Where Modernity, Wildlands and Indigenous Peoples Meet by Eugene Linden. The productivity paradox: Why hasn't the Internet helped the American economy grow more?
