Jonas Neilson

The Food Lab: My 19 Favorite Summer Grilling Recipes

Even when I lived in a New York apartment, grilling (perhaps illegally, on my balcony) was my favorite way to spend a warm summer evening. Now that I'm out in the Bay Area, warm summer evenings don't really exist, but I've got far more room for grilling than I've ever had before, which means that …

Gwen Stefani Carpool Karaoke (w/ George Clooney & Julia Roberts)

Wait … is that a rule? Ten everyday grammar mistakes you might be making

Before their workshop at the NGV Art Book Fair in Melbourne, writing studio the Good Copy shares some tips<p>1. Mistaking style issues for errors<p>Should you use italics for movie titles? Do you put full stops inside or outside quotation marks? Is the Oxford comma for all lists … or just some lists? …

Republicans’ general malaise: David Ignatius wants military to liberate the GOP from Trump

Can scandal-plagued David Petraeus save the Republican Party? Of course, argues David Ignatius — he’s a general!<p>A significant portion of the analysis devoted to the Republican presidential race is focused on helping the GOP figure a way out of the amazing mess it’s created. The party is on the …

Understanding why some people take their lives – and some don’t

Arthur Sommer Rotenberg was a doctor in Toronto with a promising career. He had a large, loving family and was both studious and athletic, once …

The history of why pi equals 3.14(15926…)

The number represented by pi (π) is used in calculations whenever something round (or nearly so) is involved, such as for circles, spheres, cylinders, cones, and ellipses. Its value is necessary to compute many important quantities about these shapes, such as understanding the relationship between …

The 4 Rituals That Will Make You an Expert at Anything

We hear a lot about “10,000 hours” being what it takes to become an expert. But the majority of people totally misunderstand the idea.<p>So I decided to …

14 books to read on your commute that will make you smarter about business

One way of combining the necessity of getting to our workplace with success is to spend the time reading or listening to books.<p>Here are my suggestions for great business books to read or listen to during your commute.<p><b>1.</b><b>"The</b> <b>E-Myth"</b> by Michael Greber. This is an excellent book about the myths …

I used to cheat, and now we have an open marriage

<i>We invited readers to anonymously share how they've been affected by infidelity. Hundreds replied, and some agreed to discuss their experiences, without revealing identifying details. This is one:</i><p>Marriage seems to be this one situation where you must be all things to another person, bar none. You …

I was sure that legalizing aid in dying was the right thing to do. Then I met Bad Cripple

Trading the rights of some–the dying–for others–the disabled–didn’t make sense to me. I had a lot to learn<p>The first thing you notice about Bill is that he’s in a wheelchair, much as the first thing you’d notice about a tall person is that he’s tall. With a tall person, though, you accept it; he’s …

How cheap oil could bring down the Saudi royal family

Falling oil prices could signal massive change in the Middle Eastern kingdom<p>The execution of Sheik Nimr al-Nimr and 46 other people in Saudi Arabia’s …

Meaning Is Healthier Than Happiness

People who are happy but have little-to-no sense of meaning in their lives have the same gene expression patterns as people who are enduring chronic adversity.<p>For at least the last decade, the happiness craze has been building. In the last three months alone, over 1,000 books on happiness were …

When Philosophy Becomes Therapy

Alain de Botton's self-help books for those who style themselves as intellectuals are making their way to the United States.<p>Philosophy has earned a reputation as a complicated, inaccessible, and irrelevant pursuit, consigned mostly to old white men in wood-paneled offices. It’s vaguely associated …

Is Religion Inherently Violent?

In her new book, Fields of Blood, Karen Armstrong argues against the idea that faith fuels wars.<p>"Piles of heads, hands, and feet were to be seen. It was necessary to pick one's way over the bodies of men and horses." This was how the historian Raymond of Aguilers described Jerusalem in 1099, as he …

The Absurd Philosophy of Albert Camus Presented in a Short Animated Film by Alain De Botton

What is the meaning of life? This may sound simplistic or naïve, especially in relation to much contemporary philosophy, which assumes the question …

The Very Real Pain of Exclusion

The national debate over the burdens of free speech may be discounting the toll of emotional trauma.<p>The more Donald Trump and Ted Cruz talk about denying Syrian refugees and undocumented immigrants entry into the United States, the more their poll numbers rise. On Monday, Trump went so far as to …

30 of The Most Profound Quotes From Plato

In history, there have been fewer minds more brilliant than that of the Greek philosopher, Plato.<p>I mean, consider a man who was the student of …

Can a computer write poetry?

If you read a poem and feel moved by it, but then find out it was actually written by a computer, would you feel differently about the experience? …

The brain’s miracle superpowers of self-improvement

We used to believe our brains were hardwired at birth. Now we believe we can will them to change. Is that true? Will Storr analyses the truth and hokum about 'neuroplasticity'.<p>For years she had tried to be the perfect wife and mother but now, divorced, with two sons, having gone through another …

9 Videos of Daredevils Kayaking Down Waterfalls

Someone call the Olympic Committee!<p>Kayaks have come a long way since Inuit hunters first constructed them thousands of years ago. These days extreme kayakers are flying down Class V rapids on tiny plastic boats, bouncing off rocks and flipping through the air and trying to stay upright. The most …

The Stradivarius Affair

It isn’t every day that a street criminal—a high-school dropout with two felony convictions—is accused of stealing a centuries-old violin worth as much as $6 million. But nothing about the heist of the Lipinski Stradivarius, which galvanized the music world last winter, was normal, or even …

7 Habits of Incredibly Happy People

<i>This post is in partnership with Inc., which offers useful advice, resources and insights to entrepreneurs and business owners. The article below was</i> …

September 28, 2014: Meeting A Mountain Legend, Skiing First-Descents in Greenland and More

Human Journey<p>The view of Italy’s Dolomites from the roof of Reinhold Messner’s Mountain Museum in Sulden am Ortler devoted to ice in all of its forms. (photo by Boyd Matson)<p>Every week, embark with host Boyd Matson on an exploration of the latest discoveries and interviews with some of the most …

The Science of Conquering Your Greatest Fears

Many things scare me: the huge rock at the bottom of Boulder Garden on Colorado’s Gunnison River that has flipped my kayak numerous times; the chutes off the stormy top of the Big Sky tram; sullen men with clubs who lurk in Kenya’s Ngong Hills (I met them a while back).<p>Can a scientist in an …

28 Fall Weeknight Meals You Can Make in an Hour or Less

From roasted chicken to winter squash pasta, here are 33 quick weeknight meals for fall.<p><b>Pasta, winter squash, roast chicken—fall is the best time for weeknight cooking</b>. Plan your entire week's worth of dinners with these 33 meals, each of which can be made in an hour or less.

Frozen Alive

When your Jeep spins lazily off the mountain road and slams backward into a snowbank, you don’t worry immediately about the cold. Your first thought is that you’ve just dented your bumper. Your second is that you’ve failed to bring a shovel. Your third is that you’ll be late for dinner. Friends are …

Staying Alive in Avalanche Terrain

Over the past few years, we’ve seen a sea change in terms of people’s attitudes, perception, and behavior about recreating in avalanche-prone terrain, especially skiing in the backcountry.<p>There are more of us out there than ever before, using increasingly fancy and sophisticated gear. But despite …

4 Strategies For Remembering Everything You Learn

• knowledge about the subject at hand, like math, history, or programming<p>• knowledge about how learning actually works<p>The bad news: Our education system kinda skips one of them, which is terrifying, given that your ability to learn is such a huge predictor of success in life, from achieving in …

NASA is building the largest rocket of all time for a 2018 launch

<i>Artist's rendering of NASA's Space Launch System (credit: NASA/MSFC)</i><p>NASA has worked on some inspiring interplanetary projects in the last few years, but few have been as ambitious as the simply-named Space Launch System, a new rocket that will be the largest ever built at 384 feet tall, surpassing …

11 TED Talks That Will Help You Lead A Happier Life

Increasingly, psychologists, neuroscientists, business leaders, and spiritual advisors have studied the mechanics of happiness and how we can utilize them in our everyday lives. Many of them have shared their findings at TED conferences.<p>We've gone through TED's expansive online library of …