The New Atlantis

Current Issue

No. 84

Spring 2026

Happy Meals

As Americans wonder what’s gone wrong with their food, regenerative agriculture has an answer. Can it ride the vibes and replace the factory farm?

Hannah Rowan

‘Teen Consent’ Is Not a Solution to Social Media

The popular concept makes sense for nobody — except tech companies.

Meg Leta Jones

A Shakeup Is Coming for the Nation-State

AI and drones may soon shift the basis of power away from who holds territory.

Stephen Sims

Vibing in the Ruins

What happens when the middle-class bargain breaks and online life escapes into the real world

Robert Mariani

It’s Time to Regulate

Big Tech moved fast and broke things. Now is the moment for Americans to step up and govern.

Michael Toscano

The Meaning-Filled Universe

Modern science has silenced nature. But we can still choose to listen.

Stephen L. Talbott

Exhausted by science and tech debates that go nowhere?

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Winter 2026

The Bills That Destroyed Urban America

The planners dreamed of gleaming cities. Instead they brought three generations of hollowed-out downtowns and flight to the suburbs.

Joseph Lawler

Does MAGA Actually Want American Science to Win?

Reflections on the revolution in Bethesda

Ari Schulman

Making Coders Moral Is Not a Good Enough Answer to AI Ethics

A reply to Dominic Burbidge

Brian J. A. Boyd

The Cassandra of ‘The Machine’

Paul Kingsnorth’s critique of technologized modernity is frustratingly broad. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

Charles Carman

MAHA Cedes the Obesity War to Ozempic

RFK, Jr. promised to overhaul the food system. Instead he’s tinkering with food dyes.

Garth Brown

Where’s the Thrill in the Enhanced Games?

The new doped Olympics are not about what we can do but what tech titans can do to us.

Clare Coffey

Doctor Death’s Messiah

Broke, raving, and living out of his van, for years Jack Kevorkian turned away from his first love — experiments with death — to a side quest: bringing Jesus Christ to the big screen.

Nic Rowan

Who Decides on Emergency Abortions After Roe?

Hospitals have to interpret new laws. Some are refusing to.

Leah Libresco Sargeant

American Diner Gothic

In the 2020s, the weird soul of placeless America is being born on Discord servers.

Robert Mariani

Special Series

The Lonely Neighborhood

A series by Joseph Lawler about the hidden federal policies that have made our built environment less human-scaled, less hospitable, less lovely, and less conducive to living well together

NEW — Essay 3

The Demise of Real Neighborhoods Is a Story of Finance

Earlier in this series:

Essay 1: How the Government Built the American Dream House

Essay 2: The Bills That Destroyed Urban America

Fall 2025

What Comes After Gender Affirmation?

Making transition the first-line treatment for children was a mistake, many health agencies now say. A growing group of psychologists wants to restore the therapeutic relationship.

Jennifer Block

Why We Are Better Off Than a Century Ago

Our ancestors built grand public systems to conquer hunger, thirst, darkness, and squalor. That progress can be lost if we forget it.

Charles C. Mann

So You’ve Decided to Save Your Kids from Tech

Two new books explain how family life got eaten by digital life — and how to get it back.

Meg Leta Jones

The AI Genetics Revolution Is Coming

We’re worrying about the wrong arms race with China.

Bill Drexel

An Ozempic in Every Lunch Box

Big Pharma and MAHA are fighting over how to treat childhood obesity. In the meantime, what do we tell our kids?

Hannah Rowan

The Party of Science Is Over

Democrats became so caught up appealing to experts that they forgot to appeal to voters.

Daniel Sarewitz

How Bill McKibben Lost the Plot

A new book by the high priest of the climate movement reads like the end of an era.

Ted Nordhaus

Two Hundred Years to Flatten the Curve

How generations of meddlesome public health campaigns changed everyday life — and made life twice as long as it used to be

Charles C. Mann

AI Ethics Is Simpler Than You Think

We don’t need to figure out the meaning of life to get AI right, because it’s actually a limited tool.

Dominic Burbidge

How the System Works

If you think the power system must run itself by now, you’re wrong. Behind every nicely toasted bagel is a vast network of generators, transformers, computers, wires — and, yes, people in backrooms sweating to make sure the juice flows exactly where, and when, it needs to go. What could possibly go wrong?

Charles C. Mann