Researchers discovered a new species of alga in central New York and named it Gormaniella terricola, with the genus named after poet Amanda Gorman. The new species is quite interesting in that its chloroplast genome is highly repetitive and contains quite a bit of DNA from fungi and bacteria, meaning it was likely invaded multiple times from other species through a process called horizontal transfer. Read more
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Most books are sold online, where it’s impossible to replicate the experience of browsing in a brick-and-mortar store. Book-discovery apps aim to change that. Read more
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…the investigator who was pulled off the 1929 case was one Leslie Turner White, who served as inspiration for Chandler’s Marlowe, and whose autobiography, Me, Detective (1936), played a pivotal if largely forgotten role in the formation of American noir. Read more
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Gin, bourbon, valium, weed, horse racing, nine-ball, poker, pills, petroleum, chess, sex, television, losing, winning—the novels of Walter Tevis are queasy with addictions big and little. Most are hazardous. Some are deadly. A few seem nice enough, but nice is usually booby-trapped somehow, so that a character can’t enjoy, say, a game of pool without going on a bender a page later. These are novels without rising or falling action; they move to the jerkier rhythms of recovery and relapse. Read more
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The 12 essays in this superlative collection from New Yorker staff writer Keefe reflect, as he says in his preface, his abiding preoccupations: “crime and corruption, secrets and lies, the permeable membrane separating licit and illicit worlds, the bonds of family, the power of denial.” … Every one of these selections is a journalistic gem. Immensely enjoyable writing married with fascinating subjects makes this a must-read. Read more
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