The Morning News

Camp ToB 2019

Week Two: Bowlaway

Welcome back for the second week of Camp ToB 2019! Gather round for the conclusion of Elizabeth McCracken’s Bowlaway.

"Summer, even as an adult, is the time when I allow myself to be most susceptible to crushing on someone." A theory of crushes.

↩︎ The Paris Review 2d

Perhaps the secret to Robyn's "Dancing on My Own": six seconds of silence, eons in pop music, between each line on the verse.

↩︎ NPR 2d

Here, in this remote part of the Andes, the hopeful mission of saving the planet through electric cars is destroying a fragile ecosystem and depleting stores of drinking water.

Almost all lithium goes to electric car batteries; much comes from Chile’s Atacama Desert, now reeling from mining impacts.

↩︎ Bloomberg

There's a 13-year-old in America's premier women's soccer league.

↩︎ Sports Illustrated 2d

Three million US students don't have home broadband, and the effects show up in the form of lower test scores.

↩︎ AP 2d

Maybe the thing that defines Montrose is that you’re surrounded by other people who have to think about their finiteness too—and, for a little while, we just don’t. For a couple of hours, the neighborhood simply lets it slip from our minds.

Bryan Washington on Houston’s Montrose, which, like many other American gayborhoods, is under threat of gentrification.

↩︎ BuzzFeed News

A supercut of tedious interviews Debbie Harry has endured.

Personal finance influencers scam the public by ignoring real hardships, proclaiming everyone who saves can be a millionaire.

↩︎ GQ 2d

In the early 20th century, Mary Hallock Greenewalt invented the electronic instruments that would later revolutionize music.

↩︎ Topic 2d

A scientist wants to implant HIV-positive women with embryos CRISPR-edited to reduce in-utero HIV transmission risk.

↩︎ Nature 2d

It should be no surprise the US overspends on health care: In many cases, Americans prefer to ignore—or avoid—medical advice.

↩︎ The Atlantic 2d

The first Amelia Bedelia book was published in 1963, the same year as Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique”; the series’ interest in wordplay, literalism, and figurative language is of a piece with its interest in the repetitive, devalued, yet highly intimate quality of women’s work.

Reading Amelia Bedelia as feminist commentary.

↩︎ The New Yorker

How modern life is changing human skeletons: narrower elbows, smaller jaws, and a spiky growth on the backs of skulls.

↩︎ BBC 2d

A trend of publishing only "good news" conveys a message that we never have to change—which could kill us all.

↩︎ The Outline 2d

Using a drone to take multiple high-altitude images, a photographer was able to create a 360-degree panorama photo of Mt. Everest.

↩︎ National Geographic 2d

"Free range." "Pasture fed." "Grass-fed." What those labels really mean, and why you should look for third-party certification.

↩︎ NPR 3d

A dataset of thousands of Duke students' faces is popular in China, where it's used to improve facial recognition technology.

↩︎ The Duke Chronicle 3d

A recent conversation with John Mulaney and Bill Hader that gets good when they start taking questions from the audience. Try 32:45 for Bill Hader's advice on managing anxiety with exercise, medication, or a tip from Jeff Bridges.

Hat tip, the always excellent Laura Olin.

People often get sleepy in lecture halls and conference rooms because of carbon dioxide levels, which also may make you dumber.

↩︎ The Washington Post 3d