Ideas of the Year 2013
A guide to the intellectual trends that, for better or worse, are shaping our lives today—plus a bunch of other insights, proposals, and provocations
July/August 2013
In This Issue
The biggest ideas of 2013, why junk food is fat's greatest foe, the real baby deadline, and more
Features
How Long Can You Wait to Have a Baby?
The decline in fertility over the course of a woman's 30s has been oversold. Here's what the statistics really tell us—and what they don't.
Can Government Play Moneyball?
A new era of fiscal scarcity could make Washington work better.
How Junk Food Can End Obesity
Demonizing processed food may be dooming many to obesity and disease. Could embracing the drive-thru make us all healthier?
Home Economics: The Link Between Work-Life Balance and Income Equality
The central conflict of domestic life right now isn't men versus women or mothers versus fathers; it's the family against money.
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Robert Nickelsberg/Getty; Illustration by Mike McQuade What's With the U.S. Media's Aversion to Graphic Images?
In an R-rated world, American news remains rigidly PG.
RHS/AP Baffling Plans to Foil Bizarre Terrorists
An excerpt from The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking
Nishant Choksi Papa, Don't Text: The Perils of Distracted Parenting
"You can only do one thing at a time: talk to the baby or talk on the phone."
Morph Wheels Reinventing the Wheel: Here's One You Can Fold
Witness the most awesome wheelchair yet.
Jason Ford How Yelp Might Clean Up the Restaurant Industry
Ever wonder about the risk of vermin infection at your favorite eatery? The review site is teaming up with public-health officials to make health ratings count.
Sam Island How Shareholders Are Ruining American Business
They helped cause the crash in 2008, and they're holding the economy back now.
Adriane Ohanesian/Reuters Problem: My Daughter's High School Wants Me to Send Her to Africa
Our advice columnist to the rescue
Clock: Michael A. Keller/Corbis; Scalpel: Ocean/Corbis The Worst Time to Have Surgery
By the month, day, and hour
John Cuneo NPR’s Great Black Hope
Can Glynn Washington diversify the network's audience?
American Support for Drones—by the Numbers
Should we use unmanned arial vehicles to kill suspected terrorists? How about to issue traffic tickets?
Alex Robbins How to Build a Digital Brain
Palm founder Jeff Hawkins on neurology, big data, and the future of artificial intelligence
Denis Sinyakov/Reuters Russia's Hottest Satirical Novelist Takes On the Anti-Putin Opposition
How the country is reacting to Victor Pelevin's latest novel, Batman Apollo
Mike Blake/Reuters Why So Many Americans Are Leaving the U.S.—in 1 Big Chart
Visualizing our emigration problem
Culture File
Kevin Christy 'Til Meth Do Us Part: Who Is Going to Die at the End of Breaking Bad?
When AMC's masterful series winds to a close this summer, it's a safe bet that either Walter or Jesse will have to go.
MVM Is Franz Kafka Overrated?
Critics have long tended to see him as a modernist master on par with Joyce, Proust, and Picasso. Let's reconsider that.
Steven Siewert/<i>The Sydney Morning Herald</i>/Fairfax Media/Getty Tasmania: Maybe the Most Unforgettable Place Ever
It has history, beauty, wallabies, devils, prisons, cricket matches, museums, brewpubs …
Departments
The Conversation
Responses and reverberations
Graham Roumieu The Big Question
How and when will the world end?
A Video Letter From the Editor
James Bennet on the new issue
Poetry
Heaven
A poem
Beach Reading
A poem
