Five possible benefits to the U.S. should Iran build a bomb.

Mexico City’s homicide rate today is less than a third of that for Washington, D.C.

Wisconsin and Kansas rated as top states for spotting highway-side sculpture.

Story of a professor’s response when a student is jailed on a terrorism charge (including what books she sent him in prison).

Distance is no protection these days. Change is invading Patagonia by sea and hydropower.

Account of what it’s like to visit a plate boundary on land, “the line demarking the collision of two massive tectonic plates.”

Audio slideshow explores the colorful world of plankton.

Scientist tells Sunday Times they got a story wrong about blondes; Times says he misunderstands his own data.

Video footage of the launch of STS-130 (see also photos), the last night launch.

Video analysis on how to perform a triple lutz-triple toe loop.

Tuesday poem: “The Fluffer Talks of Eternity,” by D.A. Powell.

Only 1,289 independent bookstores remain in the U.K.

A study of the Times’s most-emailed articles shows people want to spread positive, awe-inspiring news.

N.A.S.A. launches David Bowie concept mission.

Someone leaked a memo about Operation Stardust to the papers…I ate Dexamyl for dinner.

I work on the Bowie principal—do something once and it’s a mistake; do it three times and it’s an arrangement. L.R.B. personals editor serves up his favorite ads.

As the Olympics roll up once again, editors cringe over writers who verb “podium” and “medal.”

Arizona Tea Partier plans a summer run against McCain, who counters with an awkward move to the far right.

White House proposes a new climate service to provide farmers and water regulators with global warming forecasts.

Matthew Lickona explains why he wrote a comic book about an aborted fetus.

British designers draft a safer pint glass.

A man turns the detritus of his life into a yard of scrap memories, and his neighbors hate him for it.

Google Voice poetry.

Matthew Baldwin’s 2010 “Make-Yer-Own Oscar Pool” is now open and ready for your party’s picks.

Five possible benefits to the U.S. should Iran build a bomb.

Mexico City’s homicide rate today is less than a third of that for Washington, D.C.

Wisconsin and Kansas rated as top states for spotting highway-side sculpture.

Story of a professor’s response when a student is jailed on a terrorism charge (and what books she sent him in prison).

Distance is no protection these days. Change is invading Patagonia by water, by sea and hydropower.

Account of what it’s like to visit a plate boundary on land, “the line demarking the collision of two massive tectonic plates.”

Audio slideshow explores the colorful world of plankton.

Scientist tells Sunday Times they got a story wrong about blondes; Times says he misunderstands his own data.

Video footage of the launch of STS-130 (see also photos), the last night launch.

Video analysis on how to perform a triple lutz-triple toe loop.

Tuesday poem: “The Fluffer Talks of Eternity,” by D.A. Powell.

Only 1,289 independent bookstores remain in the U.K.

Many worry Canada’s housing recovery may have been so swift that it will cause another bubble.

Palin calls not considering a 2012 presidential run “absurd,” even though it wasn’t written on her hand.

How a man arrested for attacking his prostitute girlfriend and ex-wife (while on a steroidal rage) became Illinois’s new lieutenant governor.

America’s worst political ads.

How the Letterman-Oprah-Leno Super Bowl spot came together without CGI.

We meant to give it to you when you bought your Prius, in your Prius, to secure the engine block.

This year’s Olympic medals are made from recycled electronic parts.

All my life I have grafted fistfuls of dimly grasped concepts to a series of barely articulated goals. Going whole grain.

TMN seek a winter intern; applications due next Monday.

For Kevin Nguyen, karaoke has taken him from the living room to the Czech Republic—just like Taylor Swift.

“It’s the God-damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.” Vintage Yalies react to their alma mater’s new admissions video.

Scientists make model of dinosaur as it actually was: with feathers.

Op: Obama promised to fight corruption and has not; faith in congress is gone; our democracy is feigned, breeding cynicism.

Part one: The U.S.-China relationship is too big to fail; we’ve seen these snafus before.

Part two: Neither the U.S. nor China will prosper if disagreements become conflicts.

Part three: We treat China, a crucial economic partner, as an adversary; how many enemies do we need?

Slideshow of five world leaders unknown to be dead or alive.

Instapaper for Saturday: Port-au-Prince is a city of high walls, all of which came down.

Blog chronicles a frozen house in Detroit.

Announcement TMN seeks winter intern.

Some states store baby DNA; outside researchers sometimes get specimens with names attached.

New form of insulin derived from safflowers.

Nature calls on scientists to write more popular books (see also: Q&A on writing a textbook).

Audio: Radiolab’s Krulwich exhorts CalTech graduates to tell stories—if only to combat ignorance in Turkey.

“Neurocriminology,” applying neuroscience to understand criminality, is limited, but it’s meeting less institutional resistance.

Thought-controlled lighting to be demoed at the Winter Olympics.

Reporter’s account of having her brain temporarily “switched off.”

Deresiewicz calls the new Nabokov “a sham, a scam, a red herring,” a Knopf canard for cash.

Videos: Appreciation, with notes, of the great Buster Keaton.

Archive of 38 years of Super Bowl commercials.

Instapaper for the commute: Survey of the remaining grit in La Françafrique.

Russia confirms it too will drop its moon program.

Op: Biden sends a better message when he goes off-message.

Confessions of a Salinger gatekeeper who didn’t like his books much anyway.

Google and the N.S.A. team up for cyber-defense; N.S.A. historian “a little uncomfortable” with close cooperation.

Family Research Council would like gay behavior outlawed.

Estimated profits of Hollywood’s top earners; Emma Watson, #14, is the top woman.

Profile of the “Bling Ring:” L.A. teenagers who stole $3 million worth of clothes and jewelry from celebrities.

Demographic data turned into urns.

Scottish thugs’ favorite drink, Buckfast, includes 15% alcohol and as much caffeine as eight Cokes.

Photographs of Mars made from paprika, cinnamon, and chili powder, and other strange miniatures.

Video: Bluebrain Year One, attempting to reverse-engineer a human brain.

“Underwater plane” can carry three passengers 36,000 feet below the ocean surface.

Classical musicians essentially need to be in the business of adult education if they are to keep their audience.

Gapers Block editor shares the original Facebook: his high-school journal, with friends’ contributions.

Laundry detergent, energy drinks, and Hyundais all experienced recession-related sales increases.

Whether Toyota will speedily recover from this setback or suffer permanent harm is uncertain, but the betting must be on the latter.

Senate report details how large American banks are unwittingly laundering hundreds of millions of dollars for African politicians.

Harvard crowdsources its disease research.

Op: The retraction of a 1998 paper connecting vaccines to autism won’t slow the anti-vaccine movement.

In a new study of 54 vegetative patients, five show brain activity to indicate awareness; one could respond to questions.

“I believe it is of crucial importance to work with, in harmony with nature.” Prince Charles declares war on the Enlightenment.

Do not be tempted to use a certain word to describe the news cycle around Emanuel’s use of “retarded.”

None of the children taken…were orphans nor even particularly desperate. American missionaries in Haiti jailed for child trafficking.

Photos: 100 feet below Grand Central, M.T.A. workers cut through solid rock to connect four L.I.R.R. tunnels.

Chock Full o’ Nuts converted to a coffee chain in the 1930s; ever since, it’s been tough business for Manhattan nut roasters.

Choire Sicha interviews Paul Ford about online magazines and the paywalled web.

Four months after the massacre, power is transferred peacefully in Guinea.

Various world leaders measured for sickness, sneezing, colds.

Twenty years after its first store in Pushkin Square, McDonald’s chooses Russia as its top country for reinvestment in 2010.

A.I.G. to pay out $100 million in bonuses, plus tens of millions more in March.

Chart of Olympic medals versus G.D.P.; colleges ranked by the popularity of their web sites.

Op: McCain the former war hero doesn’t believe in military readiness.

“There’s nothing more to be said about ‘why no bipartisanship,’ once one recognizes the G.O.P.’s discipline.”

Condé Nast sets up snitch line for employees to tattle on one another.

On the Edwards sex tape: “To remove all digital evidence of her dalliance, [Hunter] should have burned it, preferably in a licensed incineration facility.”

Fascinating photos from one cubic foot of ecosystem.

The pitch of the blues: Blue whales are singing in a lower key, which suggests they’re flourishing.

Writer consults the compulsion to pare down his style and quit foregrounding the rendering.

Art to see: “Glean” in New York, “Default State Network” in Los Angeles; “Art Bin” in London.

Sound map of the United States needs your samples.

Accounts of recovering art from the Nazis.

House members issue letter to Toyota, seeking proof its purported fix will solve the problem of unexpected acceleration in its cars.

A former lawyer for Toyota claims he has proof of the automaker’s history of concealing safety issues.

Dispatch from Tarnac, home to France’s enemies of state.

Three years ago, McCain said he’d support a ban on “don’t ask, don’t tell”; today, he calls it “imperfect but effective.”

Upper-East-Siders, drug dealers prefer silent dogs, face ethical questions over their decision to debark.

This sentence contains expressions of outrage and disbelief largely expressed in Internet acronyms. This is a typical incendiary blog post.

Early version of the Constitution unearthed in Philadelphia.

C.I.A. offers corporate side-jobs to agents.

In the hope that you might consider bringing your much-rumoured memoir to The House of Eliot… Faber editor sends an open letter to Morrissey.

TMN needs an intern for the winter months.

An interview with James Dickey’s son, Christopher, on the event of his father’s birthday.

He…is allowed to evolve past the cycle of samsara to nirvana. The philosophy of Bill Murray.

Arenas: If I steer just one young person away from violence, then I’m living up to Abe Pollin’s legacy.

How Davos is like a magazine cover: by the time a trend percolates up, its time has already past.

Data shows that modern college-educated women are more likely to be married at 40, more likely to describe their marriages as “happy.”

Little Sweetie’s billions won’t go to the feng shui master who gave her love and a $6,500 head rub.

Pratchett: I would like to die peacefully before [Alzheimer’s] takes me over.

Video analysis of the forces involved in an aerial skiier’s “double full full full.”

Instapaper for the commute: How to survive a fall from 35,000 feet.

Brief history of the modern use of executed people’s blood to treat epilepsy.

So people in 2010 are dicks? Nerd informs 1990 self about the iPad, Obama, and cynicism.

Interactive graphic defines associations between colors and words.

Bartenders tell TMN’s Clay Risen about the most commonly mispronounced drinks.

Explanation of the “surprisingly helpful” theory that we all live in a giant cosmic hologram.

Audio: The sound of Saturn’s rings.

Ze Frank’s “Pain Pack”: messages of hurting transformed into song.

English writer awarded grant to use sheep to make poems.