CURRENT ISSUE
June 2013
Features
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The Mind on Fire
A million or so years ago, the amazing evolution of the human brain was sparked by a breakthrough that people everywhere still enjoy every day: cooking
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Burning Desire
Chiliheads crave the heat that hurts so good, a pleasure-pain riddle science is solving. But nothing compares to the gutwrenching agony of the legendary superhot that spices life in remote India
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10 Epiphanies
Sometimes a meal is just a meal. Other times, a single bite can change everything
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Rocket Fuel
For astronauts headed to the moon, NASA dreamed up meals that tried to mimic earth food
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Accounting for Taste
You know what foods you like. But why? That’s always been one of the toughest questions in perception research. Now psychologists and others, from Ivy League labs to the U.S. Army, are serving up fresh answers
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Yeasts of the Southern Wild
A star baker in New Orleans, the city of king cake and buttermilk drops, is about to deliver his sweet treats to Harlem
“Pineapple”
A new poem by Billy Collins
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Two Kids in a Candy Store
How Philadelphia confectioners Eric and Ryan Berley are giving new life to America’s oldest sweet shop
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The American Table
What’s it like to have dinner with food writers Michael Pollan and Ruth Reichl as they discuss American food culture? Something like this. (Well, without the food.)
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Welcome to the Dark Side
A cosmologist unveils her latest theories on the invisible universe, extra dimensions and human consciousness
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Pyramid Scheme
The long-reigning king of Egyptian antiquities has been forced into exile—but he’s plotting a return
Departments
From the Castle
Secretary Clough explains how the Zoo’s chefs prepare food for 400 different species
Buoyant
A fluid approach to the body in motion
Books
A history of America’s ’36 Olympic rowers. Plus: lessons of King Tut, the math of life and astronauts’ wives
An Ark on Ice
A new tissue collection will save millions of DNA samples for deciphering
Playlist
Take a look back at an interview with Sir Edmund Hillary 60 years after he became the first man to summit Mount Everest
Spotlight
What's new at the Smithsonian in June
Fast Forward
A Taste of the Future