getpocket.com June 6, 2018
What Are the Ethical Consequences of Immortality Technology?
Rejuvenation technology, mind uploading, and a second shot at life.
These stories have stood the test of time, and continue to be some of the most-saved, read, and shared stories on Pocket. They're just as relevant today as the day they were published.
Rejuvenation technology, mind uploading, and a second shot at life.
Building relationships at work takes time and patience, but it’s crucial to your career. And you shouldn’t limit efforts to just your peers, either.
Painful times can confer benefits that make us happier over the long term.
Some cities’ roads follow regimented grids. Others twist and turn. See it all on one chart.
In 2013, Bill Gates admitted ctrl+alt+del was a mistake and blamed IBM. Here’s the story of how the key combination became famous in the first place.
Let’s nerd out about the physics of hitting a baseball as hard as you possibly can.
Oliver Sacks on the psychological and physiological consolations of nature.
One emotion inspired our greatest achievements in science, art and religion. We can manipulate it – but why do we have it?
Instead of salmon and tuna, try some robin fish or takanohadai.
Fifty years after my mother slept with her married boss and got pregnant with me, I’m coming out of hiding.
Keep these tips on hand the next time you’re interviewing for a new job or angling for a raise.
The closer you are to retirement, the more crucial it is to get it right.
Knowing the rules for inheriting IRAs can help avoid simple mistakes that come with big consequences.
Books to expand your understanding of people and the world. (Last Updated: April 12th, 2019)
In the era of pods, the iconic item has become an endangered species.
It’s more challenging than it first appears.
Whether you’re going for a weekend, a week, or a month, there are some general rules to live by.
Social media has created a world in which everyone seems ecstatic – apart from us. Is there any way for people to curb their resentment?
I learned a lot, but not all of it stuck.
Type faster and more accurately.
Sometimes everybody wins when you go it alone.
Alex Honnold doesn’t experience fear like the rest of us.
You don’t need an office, employees, or investment capital to launch a small business that could generate thousands of extra dollars a year.
Running your own business is hard. Don’t miss out on your well-earned deductions when tax season comes around.
Tequila master Nick Heil tells you how to raise your mix game from good to gold.
Taking a good picture of our little satellite pal is harder than it seems, but a little prep makes a big difference.
Greyston Bakery uses a practice of open hiring: filling positions on a first-come, first-served basis, no questions asked. Now it wants to teach other companies how to do the same.
Happiness is not a state as far as Aristotle is concerned, it’s an activity, says Professor Edith Hall, and you just have to decide to become happier.
These women chose to have both a family and a job as a pro skier or mountain guide. But they're often subjected to a public narrative that either villainizes or discredits their decision.
The other day I received an email from a reader with 10 questions she wanted me to answer. No introduction. No small talk. Just a list of questions and “Thanks for your time” at the bottom.
Mark Manson shares his tips for turning your life in a new direction.
Don’t chase things like money, status, job titles, and promotions. Stop putting your career in other people’s hands and take control by making conscious decisions.
Youth isn’t a good proxy for support of political correctness, and race isn’t either.
The pigments morph because of the Munker-White illusion.
Dictators and assassins are using banned nerve agents again.
In the Martian landscape that is the Atacama desert, astrobiologists are learning how to recognize extraterrestrial organisms.
We all go through tough times, but there are ways to keep yourself motivated so you can make it out the other side.
Yellow snow is a no-go. But that’s not all you need to know.
Those who imagine that life in the past was simpler, slower, and better are wrong.
The “magic number” helped foreigners like me get by without learning the language. But I didn’t feel at home in China until I finally hung up the phone.
You're in control so decide how you want to improve, set a goal, and get to it.
Despite their wacky brains, these intelligent animals seem to respond to the drug in a very similar way to humans.
Big-box parking lots are an easy stopgap, but there’s so much public land waiting for those willing to look a little.
Prized for their meat, oil, and feathers, great auks were slowly killed off until only one remained in the wild.
You can do more for your health. And it’s not that hard.
The idea that immersing yourself in forests and nature has a healing effect is far more than just folk wisdom.
Lifelong lessons no kid should ever have to learn.
You might be surrounded by people who learn a lot, online or offline, but you’re still part of the minority. The majority of people still prefer a life of entertainment and leisure.
Money can seem like an obvious answer sometimes, but there are other ways to deal with problems.
Affluence—not willpower—seems to be what’s behind some kids’ capacity to delay gratification.
Car dependence not only reduces our quality of life, it’s a crucial factor in America’s economic and political divisions.
A mysterious wild cat in Sri Lanka may hold a clue.
Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.
When Tinder became available to all smartphone users in 2013, it ushered in a new era in the history of romance.
What the psychedelic drug ayahuasca showed me about my life.
Adding to a savings account or a stock portfolio aren’t the only ways to get richer. Simply finding what gives you joy and not going broke in the process is all it takes.
We asked a traveling musician how to optimize your playlist.
Proven software to budget, save, and protect your money.
Many Chinese phone companies have a long way to go in the software department, but Chinese Android phones run whole new operating systems that happen to support Android apps.
Breaking down the skills required for dealing with 40 different creatures.
What extreme athletes can—and can’t—tell us about human endurance.
The English banned the kilt hoping to do away with a symbol of rebellion. Instead they created a symbol of Scottish identity.
Goals and systems change constantly. Knowing the difference is key for establishing a good daily plan and achieving what you set out to do.
And why tariffs won’t bring back the blue-collar heyday they represent.
Growing inequality in the United States shows that the game is rigged.
Thinking is a tool that can be overused. But by recognizing this, you can start focusing on what is really worth your thoughts.
The myth that running causes osteoarthritis and ruins your knees has long been debunked. But what if your joints are already ruined?
Bad decisions are unavoidable, but there are steps you can take to limit how often they creep into your life.
It’s one thing to imagine the scale of the universe. It’s another to see it up close.
An expert explains why the US struggles with modern wars.
Colors can come from art, chemistry, flowers, and even horses. The name is just the beginning.
In an age of all-knowing algorithms, how do we choose not to know?
How the biggest farming practice you’ve never heard of is changing your food.
Rilke on freedom, togetherness, and the secret to a good marriage.
We come into conversations with our own agendas and low attention spans, but if you want to build better relationships you need to master active listening.
Organizing tasks on paper is a tried and true method for getting things done. Here are some types of to-do lists that may be right for you.
Religious communities often face a choice: Sell off the buildings they can no longer afford, or find a way to fill them with new uses.
CEOs work an average of 62 hours a week and attend 37 meetings. Getting the most out of their hours is critical.
The sleep-wake limbo may have been a boon to our ancestors' survival.
Whether it’s used for elocution lessons or to settle a bet between friends, every tongue twister came from somewhere.
How well do you recognize and understand your emotions? What about the emotions of those around you?
Delaying Social Security and using RMD rules to draw down your nest egg is a winning combination for middle-income retirees.
How the stories of independent workers reveal the reality of modern work.
"Should" traps us into searching for that one right answer, while "could" opens our minds to creative possibilities.
Life on the ranch was hard enough already and full of uncertainty. Then a string of dead calves turned up, and everything pointed to murder. But why? And how? A Longview mystery.
Just because someone is mean doesn’t mean they’re a bad person.
In short, nothing good—and just one bad night can trigger a cascade of scary side effects.
Your super liberal and super conservative relatives might all have one thing in common.
With the right plan, you’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish.
Mindfulness programs have become popular on K–12 campuses, but in some parts of the country concerns about religious intrusion keep the trend at bay.
A great sentence makes you want to chew it over slowly in your mouth the first time you read it.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years of bringing my students to Ireland – my homeland – is that they pay rapt attention to the little things.
How ‘Fyre Fraud’ and ‘Tidying Up With Marie Kondo’ capture a precarious cultural moment.
Psychologists increasingly think effortful restraint is not the key to the good life. So what is?
Smart guides for understanding this strange and contradictory moment in history.
Robert Holmes taught his sons everything he knew about exposing black-market knockoffs. Now they take down the world’s biggest scammers while dodging threats from the mob.
Nearly 80 years ago, a construction standstill derailed the subway’s progress, leading to its present crisis. This is the story, decade by decade.
What science can tell us about how other creatures experience the world.
It’s easy to look at success and attribute it to good decision making. But here’s the thing—that statement is also true the other way around.
If you plan to delay retirement, watch out for these benefit traps.
Society tells us a lot of things about what we should want in a career and what the possibilities are—which is weird because I’m pretty sure society knows very little about any of this.
Eighty years ago today, a four-year-old girl vanished into the Pennsylvania woods. The search captivated people across the nation — and some have never stopped looking.
In their tween and teenage years, girls become dramatically less self-assured—a feeling that often lasts through adulthood.
I’m bipolar, and when I started to feel that familiar mix of attraction, infatuation and intensity, I had to stop and ask, ‘is this real?’
Absentee leadership rarely comes up in today’s leadership or business literature, but research shows it is alarmingly common.
Premiums keep rising, but you may need a policy more than ever.
What you eat changes how you feel. These foods are the best for your brain.
You don’t have to lift less as you get older—you just have to make a few adjustments to your training.
The U.S. has added 10,000 of these budget retail outlets since 2001. But some towns and cities are trying to push back.
Men are 10 times more likely than women to commit murder, nine times more likely to end up in prison, and commit 99% of reported rapes and sexual assaults. Why?
Stop trying to balance work and life, and don’t give things up. There are other ways to be successful.
The widespread failure of American mass transit is usually blamed on cheap gas and suburban sprawl. But the full story of why other countries succeed is more complicated.
Individuals and circumstances may change but people do not. That's why this rule still holds true.
Under pressure of a warming world, does ‘glacial’ need to be decommissioned and pushed over the climate cliff?
Marie Kondo’s ‘Tidying Up’ is hardly a new concept for those who live a nomadic lifestyle.
Leadership is a character trait we can all cultivate. And filling a leadership role is about more than being assertive.
For most of the history of our species, in most parts of the world, bathing has been a collective act. It might be time to resurrect this ancient and deeply human art.
What philanthropic habits can teach us about human behavior and expectations.
The explosive growth of their AI voice assistants has Google, Apple, and Amazon racing to put your entire smartphone in an earpiece.
A poll finds that far from being more moderate than urban or rural voters, suburbanites are actually more partisan.
The new tax law adds wrinkles for homeowners deciding whether or not to retire without a mortgage.
Seaweed is delicious. To Bren Smith, that’s just the start.
Immerse yourself deeply in the process of growth and development — and enrich your life
Convinced Wi-Fi is making them sick, they’re covering their homes in foil or moving to the desert. Now they’re terrified the 5G revolution will leave them with nowhere to go.
A guide to the new reality-melting technology in your phone’s camera.
A trip to Martinique for the island’s unique rhum agricole with importer Ed Hamilton.
Carl Zimmer’s sprawling book, She Has Her Mother’s Laugh, forces readers to reconsider what they think they know about genetics and heredity.
Justin Alexander went searching for higher meaning. No one expected the quest to end in a search for his body.
By the time you reach the interview phase, your prospective employer already knows a lot about you. They know your previous experience. What they don’t know is whether they want to work with you.
One of the most brilliant minds of the Harvard class of ’35, Reed Edwin Peggram met his soulmate on the eve of World War II and risked everything to stay by his side.
When it comes to children’s development, parents should worry less about kids’ screen time—and more about their own.
What makes a person claim a medal when they haven’t gone the full distance?
Lower back pain can be persistent and difficult to fix. These yoga poses can help.
Then again, you shouldn’t be anyway.
A good financial strategy is more about how you treat your money than how much you have.
Like it or not we pretty much do believe everything we see. Here's some mind-warping visuals.
Tracing the origins of the animal rights movement to one truly bizarre 1922 court case.
Here’s one more way our modern sleep schedules might be killing us.
In his much-loved book 'What I Talk About When I Talk About Running,' Haruki Murakami completely misunderstands what it means to be a female runner.
With phones and tablets everywhere nowadays, it’s no surprise many parents are worried about the potentially harmful effect screens will have on their kids. New studies show they can calm down a little.
It’s time to end the tyranny of open-concept interior design.
Long before mobile phones or even photography, diaries were kept as a way to understand oneself and the world one inhabits.
Rising temperatures are bringing ethnic tensions to a boil in Central Asia.
Spurred perhaps by social media, more people are classified as perfectionists. What are the costs and how can you break the paralysis that’s killing your productivity?
When we’re not even aware of our own habits, routines, impulses, and reactions, then we no longer control them; they control us.
We are all trained to be passive thinkers and doers, but it can really hold you back.
After watching how my family treated my lesbian mom, I assumed it would all repeat when I came out. But as my grandma’s memory faded, her disapproval of gay people vanished too.
Welcome back, Ektachrome!
Life is unpredictable yet we still have to function. Here's some advice on how to stay in control.
Simple and smart ideas to create more connections in city life.
A guide to getting off the couch, no matter how much you might resist it.
As a kid with a sensory processing disorder, a lot of things that were meant to be fun were actually terrifying. As an adult, I'm making up for the experiences I missed out on.
I had zero experience when I signed up for a week at sea on an ancient wooden vessel. I got enough to last a lifetime.
The TV legend possessed an extraordinary understanding of how kids make sense of language.
More women than ever are undergoing fertility treatment on their own. Yet the process is designed almost exclusively for couples. Smart Design’s Stephanie Yung explores a better way in this three-part series called Project Junior.
When it comes to waves, newcomers are not wanted.
Fascinating new research helps explain why some keep going when others quit.
The big-data makeover of humanity could be a recipe for disaster.
America’s wonkiest fruits and vegetables have ignited a food war.
Nick Chater argues our brain is a storyteller, not a reporter from an inner world.
An analysis of dental plaque illuminates the forgotten history of female scribes.
A prominent politician was accused of raping a 12-year-old actress—in 54 B.C. The way his legendary lawyer dismissed it speaks volumes about how we prosecute these crimes now.
"Metabolism" has been twisted and spun to the point where what many of us think about it is not entirely correct, if at all. Let’s straighten some of that out.
Protect your device from vulnerabilities.
Even though you may be getting a lot done, going all out all the time can have its downsides.
How the world’s quirkiest micro-nation got pulled into one of history’s most epic intercontinental frauds
How a taste for sweetness, developed for survival, became a stand-in for everything good — and evil — about our culture.
Inside the curious cottage industry devoted to teaching young adults how to act like grown-ups.
How to learn skills faster.
I’m 93, and, as extremism sweeps across Europe, I fear we are doomed to repeat the mistakes which created the Holocaust.
Artificial intelligence could erase many practical advantages of democracy, and erode the ideals of liberty and equality. It will further concentrate power among a small elite if we don’t take steps to stop it.
Don’t worry about how you will change. Focus on what habits you want to form and why.
Why one physicist believes our whole understanding of black holes is wrong.
Jeff Henry often said that his goal in life was to make customers of his family’s legendary water parks happy—“to put a smile on their faces, to give them a thrill or two.” It was a beautiful vision. Until it went horribly wrong.
Enterprises are struggling because they are using yesterday’s paradigms to solve today’s problems. Let’s fix that.
A study documents the huge amount of space taken up by parking, and the astronomical costs it represents, in five U.S. cities.
Welcome to the abyss of the “reverse supply chain,” where hope springs eternal.
When you lose your sense of smell, everything from coffee to sex is just not as much fun. After a year of suffering, a rigorous regimen of smell training brought it back.
Why Errol Morris is still outraged by the famous philosopher of science.
When we loose focus it's because we are letting the distractions in. Here's some tips on how to beef up your defenses.
A growing portion of the elderly look and act anything but.
“Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.”
“Every classmate who became a teacher or doctor seemed happy,” and 29 other lessons from seeing my Harvard class of 1988 all grown up.
You heard me. On cramped flights, the person who reclines their seat in front of me really chafes.
The sweet spot in decision-making is to find the short-term failures that enable the huge long-term successes to happen in the first place.
How Netflix and the streaming wars are creating massive income inequality in the entertainment industry.
Scientists point the finger at the brain chemical adenosine for the endurance-sapping effects of mental fatigue.
“Grief is a force of energy that cannot be controlled or predicted. It comes and goes on its own schedule. Grief does not obey your plans, or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love.”
One roadie’s guide to surviving nomadic life in the hardest-partying business on earth.
You know best what you like but it isn’t always easy to find. Here's some tips you may not have tried yet.
Step one: rethink the entire concept of a career.
Whether you stay with your current insurer or switch, you can lower your rate without sacrificing coverage.
While new theories and experiments emerge all the time, nothing new seems to be coming from them.
It’s never a bad time to re-evaluate your digital addiction.
Why even behavioral scientists say listening is so important.
To start, we need to get more specific in how we define culture.
The ski trail map at your local mountain was probably painted by James Niehues. Now you can see his life's work in one beautiful book.
As the capture and conviction of Mexico’s notorious drug lord has shown, taking down the boss doesn’t mean taking down the organization.
It used to be that 95 percent of global startup and venture-capital activity happened in the U.S. Today, it’s just over one-half.
HelloFresh blew past 100 competitors to become the No. 1 meal-kit company on the planet. The German startup is winning—but not by playing nice.
U.S. mayors are split on whether business incentives are good politics, but most believe—despite evidence to the contrary—that they’re good policy.
Elon Musk wants to engineer Mars’ atmosphere. Can he?
Searching for a job is quite stressful. But there are several things you can do to keep your distress in check.
“Tracking my time has changed how I think about my time. Knowing exactly where my hours go has helped me feel like I can slow time’s ceaseless ticking.”
You’ve probably never heard of many of these, but in this list may be the exact word you’ve been looking for.
Leading by example is a reality for leadership teams and how they work with each other can determine if their work succeeds or fails.
Walt Whitman and the discipline of creative self-esteem.
What if instead of keeping the noise out we let the silence in.
As an actress and model, I presented whatever the world wanted me to be. But there was so much more to my story.
Charlie Santore sees Los Angeles from the inside, by breaking into safes whose owners can no longer unlock them.
Societies forget, and this physicist wants to know why.
The years since 2008 have seen a global crackdown on offshore finance. Yet a few places have doubled down on offering secrecy to the super-rich. Among these, one tiny Caribbean island might be the worst offender.
“In the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”
History is full of sorrowful knights, sobbing monks and weeping lovers – what happened to the noble art of the manly cry?
The sheer stress of an environment contributes to obesity and diabetes.
Hello there, friend. What’s that I hear? You’re pissed off at someone? Someone is pissed off at you? You have a fight in your life and you don’t know what to do? Well, you’ve come to the right place.
I was arrested at an anti-war protest, jumped bail and went on the run. That’s when my story really began.
By this point in the year, your New Year’s resolutions may have fizzled or grown boring. Here’s how to get back on track.
You don’t have to sign up for full Medicare coverage at age 65 if you’re still covered under an employer’s plan. But you’ll need to watch enrollment deadlines.
When desperate storeowners want to convince passersby to stop in, they hire fun, happy people to pose as shoppers. They’re actually out-of-work actors, retirees, and me.
The Great War was fought by soldiers who spoke many different languages. Here are a few English terms coined during the war, some of which are still used today.
Kevin Simmers locked up hundreds of drug users—including his own daughter—while the opioid epidemic raged. Now he wants 24-hour treatment on demand.
It only takes a few ingredients and about an hour of your time, yet it’s one the most famous Italian recipes.
Children today are cossetted and pressured in equal measure. Without the freedom to play, they will never grow up.
Behind every interview question, there are three things that the interviewer is trying to figure out.
“Old friends cannot be created out of hand. Nothing can match the treasure of common memories, of trials endured together, of quarrels and reconciliations and generous emotions.”
After giving up competitive running, cycling, and triathlon, I bought a farm in Tennessee. I didn’t know at the time how challenging—and life-affirming—growing my own food would be.
To begin, don’t dismiss the humble acquaintance.
Powering through your work week after week can cause some serious tunnel vision and prevent you from accomplishing what you’re capable of.
The Harrison Ford–starring thriller represents the best of a genre that has faded: the character-driven action movie for adults.
Big-box retailers nationwide are slashing their property taxes through a legal loophole known as "dark store theory." For the towns that rely on that revenue, this could be a disaster.
“Who is good if he knows not who he is? and who knows what he is, if he forgets that things which have been made are perishable, and that it is not possible for one human being to be with another always?”
A controversial disease revives the debate about the immune system and mental illness.
How one writer went from barely reading to trying to plow through a book a day, and how you can find more time to read, too.
Despite the popularity of local food, the average farmer is not thriving.
Americans don’t realize how fast the country is moving toward becoming a better version of itself.
When I first came across Charlie Munger’s 1995 Speech, The Psychology of Human Misjudgment, I realized that I could learn more from him than my MBA. So I spent the next few years reading and researching about cognitive biases and how we mislead ourselves.
Timeless advice to the next generations from the woman who catalyzed the environmental movement.
Size has something to do with it, but it is more about why the land is being preserved.
UrbanFootprint makes it easy to run simulations to see how a new plan might change traffic and commute times, the ability of kids to walk to school, access to jobs, energy use, the local economy, health, and carbon emissions.
Reuniting stumped readers with the books from the edges of their memories.
How plastic is the brain?
The Mars company has sponsored hundreds of scientific studies to show cocoa is good for you.
Roadside shrines marking the site of cycling tragedies are showing up everywhere, a sign of how little progress we’ve made in making biking safer. It’s time we organize.
Ways to keep you and your family protected without paying an arm and a leg.
As Einstein would have it, there is no necessary conflict between science and religion—or between science and “religious feelings.”