What we are reading June 3, 2026

Prominent men like Marc Andreessen and Dana White are saying self-awareness is a waste of time. Research and history beg to differ.

Thiel’s passport-collecting spree reflects his apocalyptic psyche. But it connects directly to his politics, which see technology as an “incredible alternative to politics.”

On paper, the job market looks pretty darn good.

The fiery loss of a New Glenn rocket means unknown delays for the Artemis lunar program.

How organized crime fell in love with cheese—and made it the most stolen food item in the world.

Tracing the pathway from the brain to immune cells.

Sometime around 1781, while serving as minister to France, Benjamin Franklin set his pen to paper to address an important subject. Not liberty, diplomacy, or trade relations — passing gas. “It is universally well known,” the great statesman and polymath wrote, “That in digesting our common Food, there is created or produced in the Bowels of human Créatures, a great Quantity of Wind.” Because letting this “wind” escape is usually “offensive to the Company,” he continued, most well-bred people try to restrain the “Efforts of Nature,” at the risk of causing pain or even disease to themselves. The essay was addressed to the Royal Academy of Brussels in response to its “Mathematical Prize Question,” though Franklin never actually sent it. He found the academy’s question — “given a certain geometric figure, how could one determine the greatest number of smaller figures that could ...Read More