Menu Close

Articles on Longreads

Displaying 21 - 36 of 36 articles

Companies could soon tailor what they try to sell you based on the mood conveyed by the sound of your voice. CSA-Printstock via Getty Images

Shhhh, they’re listening – inside the coming voice-profiling revolution

Marketers will soon be able to use AI-assisted vocal analysis to gain insights into shoppers’ inclinations – without people knowing what they’re revealing or how that information is being interpreted.
Japanese author Yukio Mishima speaks to Japanese Self-Defense Force soldiers at Tokyo’s military garrison station on Nov. 25, 1970. JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Images

Japan’s most famous writer committed suicide after a failed coup attempt – now, new photos add more layers to the haunting act

Like a Rorschach test, the incident offers limitless interpretations. But newly published photographs of Yukio Mishima in his final weeks alive show an artist obsessed with scripting out death.
Specimens in herbaria include “pickled” plants in pots (shown here), dried specimens and fruits or seeds preserved whole. Ainsley Calladine, State Herbarium of South Australia

From Joseph Banks to big data, herbaria bring centuries-old science into the digital age

Australia’s herbaria are a priceless repository, holding around 8 million samples that map historical and current distributions of native and introduced plant species in Australia.
A blueprint for ISIS – and for a video game? Camp Bucca, Iraq. Atef Hassan/Reuters

Playing at torture, a not so trivial pursuit

Does including torture or other human rights violations in video games trivialize the actions? Or might it force us to think more critically about them?
Other ways humanity could end are more subtle. United States Department of Energy

The five biggest threats to human existence

In the daily hubbub of current “crises” facing humanity, we forget about the many generations we hope are yet to come. Not those who will live 200 years from now, but 1,000 or 10,000 years from now. I…
Your inner self. pureblacklove

The science of anatomy is undergoing a revival

Only two decades ago, when I was starting my PhD studies at the University of California in Berkeley, there was talk about the death of anatomy as a research subject. That hasn’t happened. Instead the…

Top contributors

More