Paramount, the studio behind the upcoming sci-fi thriller, has taken the unusual step of selling its international rights to Netflix. When Paramount released the Amy Adams–starring Arrival in November 2016, it was one of the biggest hits of the year for the studio. It grossed $203 million worldwide, was critically acclaimed, and netted eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Direc

To my knowledge, no one has ever been killed by a plummeting bird feeder. Still, when you live on the 25th floor of a Manhattan high-rise, you can’t hang one outside the window and risk knocking off a pedestrian below. Several winters ago, I sat at my desk lamenting this fact while gazing across the gray expanse of chimneys and water towers stretching to the East River and beyond. I was holed up i

Pamela Paul’s memories of reading are less about words and more about the experience. “I almost always remember where I was and I remember the book itself. I remember the physical object,” says Paul, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, who reads, it is fair to say, a lot of books. “I remember the edition; I remember the cover; I usually remember where I bought it, or who gave it to me. W

A 1629 manuscript containing the first-known use of the term can be found at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Liber Lilliati contains bawdy verse written some time before 1629 (Rebecca L. Fall / Twitter / Zak Bickel / The Atlantic) What more can be said about Donald Trump’s reported remark about “shithole countries”? Media outlets have by and large decided it was newsworthy enough to report without

Yellowstone National Park, where some of the Asgard microbes were found.  (Jim Urquhart / Reuters) In Norse mythology, humans and our world were created by a pantheon of gods who lived in the realm of Asgard. As it turns out, these stories have a grain of truth to them. Thanks to a team of scientists led by Thijs Ettema, Asgard is now also the name of a large clan of microbes. Its members, which a

Ancient Infant's DNA Reveals New Clues to How the Americas Were Peopled Her 11,500-year-old remains suggest that all Native Americans can trace their ancestry to the same founding population. Around 11,500 years ago, at a place that is now called the Upward Sun River, in the region that has since been named Alaska, two girls died. One was a late-term fetus; the other, probably her cousin, was six

Among Filipino hunter-gatherers, storytelling is valued more than any other skill, and the best storytellers have the most children. Once upon a time, the sun and moon argued about who would light up the sky. They fought, as anthropomorphic celestial bodies are meant to do, but after the moon proves to be as strong as the sun, they decide to take shifts. The sun would brighten the day, while the m

Unlike most entries in the Star Wars saga, Rian Johnson’s film actually explores the systemic oppression the Resistance is fighting against—and the movie is all the more fascinating for it. This article contains major spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. For 40 years, the Star Wars saga has largely been one of good guys and bad guys, of the Rebels and the Empire, of the Light Side and Dark Side

2017: The Year in Volcanic Activity Alan Taylor December 13, 2017 40 Photos In Focus While this has been a relatively average year for the world's active volcanoes, the activity that did take place was spectacular. Out of an estimated 1,500 active volcanoes, 50 or so erupt every year, spewing steam, ash, toxic gases, and lava. In 2017, erupting volcanoes included Shiveluch in Russia, Villarrica in

Andrey Atuchin's depiction of Deinocheirus mirificus (right) and other dinosaurs in Titan Books' Dinosaur Art II: The Cutting Edge of Paleoart (Titan Books ) Many people visit the fossil hall at Chicago’s Field Museum for the dinosaurs; but a certain kind of art lover goes for the murals. Originally painted by the famed wildlife artist Charles R. Knight in the late 1920s, each of the hall’s 28 mur

If you’ve ever eaten a banana, changed a car tire, or accidentally killed an orchid, then you have the Wardian case to thank. Unfortunately, you can probably also blame this small, sealed container for the rapid spread of both European colonialism and invasive plant species in the 19th century. A predecessor of the modern terrarium, it held plants, and was made of glass and closed such that it wou

A handwritten manuscript by the Scottish poet Robert Burns (Suzanne Plunkett / Reuters) Joshua Plotkin’s dive into the evolution of language began with clarity—and also a lack of it. Today, if you wanted to talk about something that’s clear, you’d say that it has clarity. But if you were around in 1890, you would almost certainly have talked about its clearness. Plotkin first noticed this linguist

In Japan, you can pay an actor to impersonate your relative, spouse, coworker, or any kind of acquaintance. Money may not be able to buy love, but here in Japan, it can certainly buy the appearance of love—and appearance, as the dapper Ishii Yuichi insists, is everything. As a man whose business involves becoming other people, Yuichi would know. The handsome and charming 36-year-old is on call to

The foundation of Donald Trump’s presidency is the negation of Barack Obama’s legacy. It is insufficient to state the obvious of Donald Trump: that he is a white man who would not be president were it not for this fact. With one immediate exception, Trump’s predecessors made their way to high office through the passive power of whiteness—that bloody heirloom which cannot ensure mastery of all even