November 2012

Deparments

Opening Announcements, Cover and Contents, Departments

Phenonmenon

Beauty

Our theme this month is beauty, from elegant math theorems to the economic benefits of being attractive.

Cloumns

Smithsonian, Books, Fastforward

By Various Artists

The Hunt for Ebola

A CDC team races to Uganda just days after an outbreak of the killer virus to try to pinpoint exactly how it is transmitted to humans

By Joshua Hammer

The Last Renaissance Man

Lewis Lapham battles Internet ephemera with his Quarterly of ideas

By Lewis Laphman

Features

Mr. Lincoln Goes to Hollywood

A new movie from director Steven Spielberg conveys a lesson about effective leadership that today’s politicians would do well to heed

By Roy Blount Jr.

Primal Instinct

A family of habituated western lowland gorillas in the Central African Republic is giving researchers valuable insights into the lives of the shy primates

By Abigail Tucker

Assassination Foiled

Campaigning for president 100 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt was spared almost certain death when he was shot by an assailant. Here’s what saved him

By Patricia O’Toole

Seoul of a New Machine

The once poor South Korean city has bloomed into a cultural capital with high-profile architecture, top museums and an influential art scene

By Tom Downey

The Gospel According to King/h3>

Professor Karen King has caused a firestorm over her finding that a recently analyzed papyrus suggests that Jesus may have had a wife

By Ariel Sabar

Breaking Point

In Malibu, an ugly fight over a clean proposal to clean up a lagoon near a popular surfing spot exposes cracks in the surface of an iconic American playground

By Claire Martin