The New York Times

Can Preschoolers Be Depressed?

Researchers say that for some very young children, what looks like moodiness may actually be something more.

Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead

Something about zombies has become more appealing to us. Maybe it’s because the world so often seems like a zombie onslaught.

The Year of Living Postracially

A year ago, voters elected the first president of African descent. Therefore, here's a volunteer to be the first secretary of postracial affairs.

Is It a Crime to Be Poor?

In defiance of all reason and compassion, the criminalization of poverty has actually been intensifying as the recession generates ever more of it.

Wall Street Smarts

A theory about why the financial system nearly collapsed seemed too simple to be true, but it was hard to find any flaws in it.

Fictions on the Ground

Israel’s settler myth has been transposed to the Palestinian lands seized in war in 1967 and occupied illegally ever since.

One Giant Leap to Nowhere

Why the American space program died the moment the foot of Apollo 11’s Commander Neil Armstrong touched the surface of the Moon in 1969.

Are Your Friends Making You Fat?

Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler say your friends — and even your friends’ friends — can make you quit smoking, eat too much or get happy. A look inside the emerging science of social contagion.

Understanding the Anxious Mind

Is the economy making you nervous? Or is it terrorism? Or could it be the way you’re hard-wired?

Women Who Want to Want

As they revise their psychiatric diagnostic manual, researchers are wondering why so many women feel little sexual desire and what should be done for them.

The No-Stats All-Star

The N.B.A. (learning from baseball) is discovering the power of new statistics and weird analytics. By these measures, the unsung and undervalued Shane Battier is a true all-star.

The Self-Storage Self

What is it about Americans that makes us store elsewhere all that stuff we accumulate?

Why Shariah?

Millions of Muslims think Shariah means the rule of law. Could they be right?

The Accidental Rebel

Being crazy struck me as a perfectly sane response to the hand I had been dealt — the hand that all young men had been dealt in 1968.

It’s a Wonderful Block

The author lives in a poor city with high taxes and struggling schools. So what makes West Rock Avenue such a great place to live?

The Moral Instinct

Evolution has endowed us with ethical impulses. Do we know what to do with them?

Me and My Girls

What if I told you I was a fat thug who beat up women and sold bad coke? Now what if I said that I was a recovered crack addict who got custody of my twin girls, got us off welfare and raised them? Both are the story of my life.

Deeply, Truly (but Not Physically) in Love

A wife wonders what to do when familiarity breeds a contempt for sex.

Students of Virginity

In the Ivy League, abstinence is a) philosophical, b) research-based, c) an outgrowth of feminism, d) sexy and fun, e) all of the above.

Darwin's God

In the world of evolutionary biology, the question is not whether God exists but why we believe in him. Is belief a helpful adaptation or an evolutionary accident?