From HIR, a special issue on failed states. From Nova, aliens from Earth: Is the hobbit, known scientifically as Homo floresiensis, a new human species? Former grifter Todd Robbins has made a career out of the art of deception; here are his lessons for how to avoid getting played for a sucker. More on Jim Holt's Stop Me If You’ve Heard This Before. What’s really going on in the Gulf of Aden? It’s time for Somali Pirates 101. "I am the eternal altar boy": This year's Buchner-Prize laureate Josef Winkler on dung heaps, the fear of speechlessness and the elegance of John Paul II's coffin. Group think: The turn to online research is narrowing the range of modern scholarship, a new study suggests. Are Pentagon nerds developing packs of man-hunting killer robots? A review of The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes. An interview with Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly, authors of Unjust Deserts: How the Rich are Taking our Common Inheritance and Why We Should Take it Back.  If the conservative era is over, can liberals come out of their defensive crouch and call themselves liberals again, instead of progressives? Corpulent News Network: With no muddling broadcast news network to support, CNN’s Jonathan Klein is free to spend the network’s $1.1 billion in revenue on whatever he wants!

Louise Crowther (Manchester): Diderot, Spinoza, and the Question of Virtue. Form ProPublica, who will Bush let off the hook?; what docs can the White House put in the shredder?; and can Obama turn back the clock on Bush’s midnight rules? A review of The Book of Animal Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong by John Lloyd. If our tests mimic the real world, then higher bonuses may not only cost employers more but also discourage executives from working to the best of their ability. The Old-School Individualist: Independent game designer Jeff Vogel on putting morality into play. We have come to think of gender as a spectrum; is it time to do the same for sex? From World Press, an article on 120 years of non-concluded abolition. An infinite loop in the brain: What if memory never faded, but instead could be retrieved at any time, as reliably as films in a video store? George W. Bush wasn't so bad: We don’t need to wait for history to render judgment on the positive aspects of Bush’s presidency. Nine out of ten dogmas: Frank Furedi on the assumptions, agendas and distinctly iffy data behind those ubiquitous words, "research shows". A review of The Lost Art of Walking by Geoff Nicholson. An interview with Thomas Hayden, author of Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World (and an excerpt).

From YaleGlobal, an article on the limits of growth: Economic crisis, an area where humans wield great control, should not take priority over the climate-change crisis (and part 2). It is an economic state of nature we live in right now, and Hobbes and Locke point the direction. From FP, an interview with Matthew Waxman on how to close Gitmo (in six easy steps). How to deal with pirates: The rise of piracy is threatening international trade and raising complex questions; the only way to end the scourge is to respond aggressively. What's with this piratomania? Why do pirates have us hooked? Linton Weeks wants to know (but do check your pirate insurance). Here are 5 myths about our ailing health-care system. Let the guy smoke: Obama is probably fibbing about giving up cigarettes — that's okay. A review of Try to Remember: Psychiatry's Clash Over Meaning, Memory, and Mind by Paul R McHugh. A review of books on the making of modern Hebrew. From The Economist, an article on the decline of the Republican Party. Dahlia Lithwick on why Eric Holder will have his hands full at the Justice Department. More and more and more and more and more and more and more on Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. A review of The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies by Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson.

From Vanity Fair, forget hanging chads, 9/11, and those missing W.M.D.’s; a massive new conspiracy book proves that the original unanswerable question is still the juiciest: who shot J.F.K.? (and more on what might have been). The great divide: The discipline of anthropology has split firmly into two factions - - social anthropologists and evolutionary anthropologists; can the warring sides be reconciled? No gene is an island: Even as biologists catalog the discrete parts of life forms, an emerging picture reveals that life’s functions arise from interconnectedness. Financial Reversals: Everything bad is good again. An article on the art of translation. From Salon, an appreciation of Michelle Obama's beauty — and booty. Michelle's best assets: Out of all her stellar qualities, why go there? In defense of Generation Y: The recent presidential campaign upended a number of common misconceptions about the “young voter” demographic. Sister Souljah rejects any labels on her literary output. A review of The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government by Thomas N. Bisson. How many blogs does the world need? Michael Kinsley wants to know. From Vox, an article on uncertainty, climate change, and the global economy. An interview with notorious lawyer Jacques Verges: "There is no such thing as absolute evil".