Unworthy and superficial It is a pity that “The Big Question” [“Will the Gulf of Mexico Recover from This Spring’s Massive Oil Spill?” Summer] did not take advantage of the opportunity to interview an expert at greater length about an important issue. I hope the magazine was not trying to trivialize one of the greatest […]

But are you happy?” That’s the killer question I’ve faced repeatedly since the publication of my book Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. I take a deep breath because I know what’s at stake. If I come across as unhappy or even a little conflicted, I can be dismissed as […]

Here’s a memory that’s come back a lot of times. He doesn’t know why, but it’s just stuck. They’re in the minivan. Left Belfast about a half hour before and were heading south on Route 1 toward Bath and 95, which they’d take to the Kennebunkport exit. They’d spend the night at an inn there […]

Since I work on a college campus, I have a front row seat to that annual spring rite, the arrival of the reunion classes. About a week after Commencement, the surviving members of the 25th and the 50th and sometimes even the 75th classes arrive, for a round of cocktail parties and lectures and golf […]

In the tradition of violin making, Giovanni Paolo Maggini holds a distinguished pedigree and place. The Italian, who made instruments between 1590 and 1630, learned his trade from Gasparo da Salo, dubbed the father of all fiddle makers. An exacting craftsman, Maggini only made 60 or so instruments in his lifetime. Collectors have long prized […]

How Stanley Mazaroff—who has been a Baltimore employment lawyer, a 62-year-old Johns Hopkins freshman, and Blue Jay lacrosse legend Jerry Schnydman’s Little League baseball coach—became the author of an art history book is a complicated story. That’s appropriate given the complex and conflicted relationship of the title characters in Mazaroff’s tight, focused work, Henry Walters […]

…By using Internet search strings such as “pro-anorexia,” “pro-bulimia” and “thin and support,” Bloomberg School researchers found dozens of websites that present dangerous ideas and encourage eating disorders. The study, led by associate professor Dina L.G. Borzekowski, analyzed the content of 180 such sites. Ninety-one percent were open to the public, and 84 percent offered […]

I couldn’t understand why a disease like schizophrenia persists in humans. People who have these diseases don’t reproduce very well, either because they’re sick, or they’ve been locked up, or because they were killed. —Robert H. Yolken, director of developmental neurobiology at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, quoted in the Baltimore Sun, 07.31.10. Yolken is […]

Jephta Drachman does not believe in debt. As the president of the board of trustees for the Shriver Hall Concert Series, which produces chamber music concerts on the Homewood campus, Drachman has overseen the organization, through 18 years of highs and lows. When she began, the series had gone from years of sold-out seasons to […]

$333,333.33: The amount Chuck Bennett received as one of three winners of the $1 million Shaw Prize for excellence in science. Bennett, a professor of physics and astronomy in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, split the loot with two Princeton faculty, physicist Lyman A. Page Jr. and astronomer David N. Spergel. The trio […]