"In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety. But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn't a primary concern. On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid -- a self-aware SecUnit that has...

"The COVID-19 outbreak has turned bedrooms into offices, pitted young against old, and widened the gaps between rich and poor, red and blue, the mask wearers and the mask haters. Some businesses–like home exercise company Peloton, video conference software maker Zoom, and Amazon–woke up to find themselves crushed under an avalanche of consumer demand. Others–like the restaurant, travel, hospitality, and live entertainment industries–scrambled...

At the heart of this book by Nobel Prize–winning immunologist and professor Peter Doherty is this striking observation: Birds detect danger to our health and the environment before we do. Following a diverse cast of bird species around the world—from tufted puffins in Puget Sound to griffon vultures in India, pigeons in East Asia, and wedge-tailed shearwaters off the islands of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef—Doherty illuminates birds’ role...

"In this new collection of 100 essays curated by The New York Times, students will find mentor texts written by their peers—13-to-18-year-olds—on a wide range of topics, including social media, race, video games, lockdown drills, immigration, tackle football, and the #MeToo movement. All of the essays were either winners or runners-up from The New York Times Learning Network 2014–2019 Student Editorial contests, in which students could take...