The New York Times

The Brain on the Stand

How advances in neuroscience could transform our legal system.

Here, There and Everywhere

When ads become ubiquitous, do they undermine themselves?

Cancer Free at 33, but Weighing a Mastectomy

More young women are learning early that they are genetically prone to breast cancer, setting off a new type of family drama.

Unhappy Meals

The story of how basic questions about what to eat got so complicated reveals a great deal about the institutional imperatives of the food industry, nutritional science and journalism.

The Gregarious Brain

Williams syndrome — a genetic accident that causes cognitive deficits and a surplus of unguarded affability — is revealing much about what makes us social beings.

At 150 Edgars Lane, Changing the Idea of Home

The handsome Tudor-style home at 150 Edgars Lane, built for less than $10,000 in 1925 on a hillside in this Hudson River town, never seemed to change much through all of its previous owners. Each family updated the house, but in modest ways until Tom and Julie Hirschfeld came along. The Hirschfelds purchased the two-story house with its gabled roof and stucco-and-wood-beam exterior for $890,000 in the fall of 2002. Good schools, safe streets, a picturesque community, like-minded neighbors, a relatively short commute to New York -- all these drew the family, just as they drew the previous owners.

Two Tiers, Slipping Into One

Article in series Rewriting the Social Contract: Barriers to Middle-Class Pay; longstanding wage advantage that manufacturing workers enjoy over their counterparts in services or construction is shrinking fast as older workers depart, at Caterpillar and at other companies; United Auto Workers union at Caterpillar reluctantly accepted two-tier contract that provides significantly lower wages and benefits for newly hired employees; new second tier is as much as $20 per hour below cost for older workers; trade-off is promise of manufacturing revival at long last in old Rust Belt, as new hires come aboard at much lower labor costs; even healthy and highly profitable companies like Caterpillar are engaging in practice of two-tier wage structure; longstanding presumption that factory workers at successful companies can achieve secure, relatively prosperous middle-class life for themselves and their families is evaporating; Caterpillar chief executive Jim Owens says lowering wages has allowed company to add jobs; graph; photos (L)

Men Not Working, and Not Wanting Just Any Job

Millions of men are turning down jobs they think beneath them or cannot find work for which they are qualified.

Lure of Great Wealth Affects Career Choices

Article in series on executive compensation, Gilded Paychecks, examines two-tier income stratum that has developed in growing number of professions and occupations since 1990's; finds doctors, lawyers and bankers are collecting much larger fees than others in their fields for their work on business deals and cases; finds many moving from academia to Wall Street, and growing number of entrepreneurs seeing windfalls tied largely to expanding financial markets that draw on capital from around world; experts say growing difference in compensation is diverting people from some critical fields; in medicine, where some specialties pay far more than others, nation lacks enough doctors in family practice; doctors have become so interested in business side of medicine that more than 40 medical schools have added optional fifth year of schooling for those who want to earn MBA degree as well as MD; some graduates go directly to Wall Street or into health care management without ever practicing medicine; photos (L)

A Muslim Leader in Brooklyn, Reconciling 2 Worlds

First of three articles in series An Imam in America; profile of Egyptian Sheik Reda Shata, who became leader of Muslim congregation in Brooklyn one year after Sept 11 terrorist attacks; finding ways to reconcile Muslim tradition with American life has worn him down and opened his mind; few of America's imams recruited from abroad are prepared to lead community on margins of American life; his collapse before his congregation one day has led to citywide training program for imams, blending Islam and psychology; photos (L)

To Lead the Faithful in a Faith Under Fire

The F.B.I. agent and the imam sat across a long wooden table at a Brooklyn youth center last August. Would the imam, the agent asked, report anyone who seemed prone to terrorism?

Tending to Muslim Hearts and Islam's Future

The young Egyptian professional could pass for any New York bachelor. Dressed in a crisp polo shirt and swathed in cologne, he races his Nissan Maxima through the rain-slicked streets of Manhattan, late for a date with a tall brunette. At red lights, he fusses with his hair.

The Dean's Daughter Gets a Thin Envelope

A FEW days ago I watched my daughter Madalyn open a thin envelope from one of the five colleges to which she had applied. ''Why?'' was what she was obviously asking herself as she handed me the letter saying she was waitlisted. Why, indeed? She had taken the toughest courses in her high school and had done well, sat through several Saturday mornings taking SAT's and the like, participated in the requisite number of extracurricular activities, written a heartfelt and well-phrased essay and even taken the extra step of touring the campus.

Fat Factors

It’s clear that diet and genes contribute to how fat you are. But a new wave of scientific research suggests that, for some people, there might be a third factor — microorganisms.

A Depression Switch?

David Dobbs article on treating severe depression by planting electrodes in brain and sending steady stream of low voltage from pacemaker in chest; procedure, called deep brain stimulation, or DBS, has been used on Parkinson's patients to calm hyperactive globus pallidus and thus control tremors; researchers, led by Dr Helen Mayberg of Kingston Psychiatric Hospital in Kingston, Ontario, believed applying DBS to part of brain called Area 25 could control depression; 8 of 12 patients who underwent DBS felt their depressions lifted significantly with minimal side effects; Mayberg believes that trial has already confirmed validity of emerging 'network' model of mood disorders, new way of looking at psychiatric conditions that is not restricted by neurochemical model of mood that has dominated over last quarter century or so; Deanna Cole-Benjamin, one of patients with successful outcomes, tells her story; photos (L)

Cyber-Neologoliferation

In the age of the Internet, the Oxford English Dictionary is coming face to face with the boundlessness of the English language.

Own Your Own Words

Intellectuals can influence public debate by borrowing a few techniques from spammers and other online bottom-feeders.

Federer as Religious Experience

How one player’s grace, speed, power, precision, kinesthetic virtuosity, and seriously wicked topspin are transfiguring men’s tennis.

The Ballad of Big Mike

Michael Lewis article on Michael Oher, All-American offensive left tackle of Ole Miss Rebels, and people in Memphis, Tenn, particularly Sean Tuohy and his wife, Leigh Anne, who helped him get there from his very unpromising beginning as more or less homeless, almost entirely unschooled 16-year-old whose father had been shot and killed and whose mother was addicted to crack; notes high salaries that NFL teams pay to left tackles because they protect right-handed quarterback's blind side; photos (L)

Baseball for Life

Jarrod Petree is one of the top 12-year-old pitchers, and he plans on making it to the majors. Which means no basketball, no trampoline, no skateboard.