Critics Love ‘Upward Bound.’ But Who Wrote It? A minimally speaking autistic man just wrote a best-selling book. Or did he?

The book has been taken by NYT and others as an authentic and important work. But was that judgment overly hasty? How much evidence did it overlook?

Did Woody Brown really write Woody Brown's best-selling novel?

More here:

www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...

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In NYT today, Frank Bruni tells the inspiring story of Woody Brown, a minimally-speaking autistic man who got an MFA at Columbia and then put out a best-selling novel.

"How much do we overlook in people," he asks, " ... by making overly hasty judgments?"

A very good question.

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Is Woody Brown the Author of Woody Brown’s Best-Selling Novel? Upward Bound has gotten rave reviews and celebrity endorsements, but experts question its authenticity.

This is completely fascinating, by @engber.bsky.social: www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...

Is Woody Brown the Author of Woody Brown’s Best-Selling Novel? Upward Bound has gotten rave reviews and celebrity endorsements, but experts question its authenticity.

Upward Bound, a best-selling debut novel about life in a day-care center for adults with disabilities, is very good.

But who wrote it?

[gift link]
www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/0...

A movie couple that would definitely have a podcast.

Don’t Get Sucked Into the War on Lice It hasn’t been going well.

How bad is it, really, to have your whole family infested with blood-sucking parasites?

www.theatlantic.com/science/2026...

Wow! If we trust this soldier's testimony, then the use of lice for paying taxes was real, but not the more outrageous-seeming claim that this was a way to control head-lice outbreaks ...

What do you make of this claim: the Inca Empire had a progressive system of taxation in which poor people were encourage to pay in head lice, which served in turn as a public-health intervention.

Dario Amodei’s Oppenheimer Moment It came earlier than expected.

I wrote about Dario’s Oppenheimer moment and the utopian dreams of the nuclear age www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

The Trump admin has shown a particular interest in animal welfare. Trump worries about windmills killing “our beautiful bald eagles.” Pam Bondi brings dogs to meetings.

Animals are wonderful, but as @engber.bsky.social points out, there is probably something more at play here. buff.ly/in8hczH

MAGA’s Animal Nationalism The Trump administration has a special bond with dogs and cats. ​​​​​​

Donald Trump's administration has taken a more active approach to animal welfare than any other president's in recent memory—which hints at something more widespread in right-wing, nationalist politics, @engber.bsky.social writes:

MAGA’s Animal Nationalism The Trump administration has a special bond with dogs and cats. ​​​​​​

The Trump administration has been working very hard to protect puppies, kittens, even mice from harm.

This fits into a long history of animal-welfare activities in ultranationalist movements:

www.theatlantic.com/science/2026...

Let’s Talk About RFK Jr.’s Workout Pants Our health secretary is jeans guy, and he knows it.

The "jeans guy" at the gym comes out into the light

www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/...

As a migraine sufferer I am intrigued by the "extra strength" medicine that contains the exact same dosages as the regular-strength

Oof, that scene at the end where Ernest Hemingway gets totally drunk and drives off a bridge

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Big Storm Coming—Better Stock Up on Boxed Salad at Trader Joe’s. Wait, What? It’s mayhem at my local Trader Joe’s right now. The line snakes out onto the sidewalk, and then around the corner. Everyone is desperate to make some...

Once again "hunker culture" is taking over-- using minor inconvenience as a rationale for buying too much food

slate.com/human-intere...

The rise and fall of quicksand. The fourth-graders were unanimous: Quicksand doesn't scare them, not one bit. If you're a 9- or 10-year-old at the P.S. 29 elementary school in Brookl ...

Slate ran a spectacular piece by @engber.bsky.social 15 years ago about a previous generation's obsession with quicksand; it's one of my favorite things ever.

www.slate.com/articles/hea...

ah, I get it. Thanks for the clarifications!

Could you please share more detail on this? I looked at the original story but didn't see a "shocking" headline, nor could I find any text in it that was copy-pasted from the study. The story did use some quotes from the Science Media Centre but not in a way that egregiously stripped out context

An Expander in Every Child’s Palate A fervor for reshaping young mouths has taken hold in orthodontics. What purpose does it really serve?

A generation ago, getting braces was a rite of passage into seventh grade. Now orthodontists are giving palate expanders—meant to keep teeth from crowding—to seven year olds. @engber.bsky.social reports:

Inside Donald Trump’s Attack on NASA’s Science Missions During his first year back in office, the president tried to bring America’s age of discovery to an end.

Even NASA's potted plants have now withered and disappeared, after money was withdrawn for watering them. This tiny detail, evoking E.T., is one of many to remember from @rossandersen.bsky.social's latest feature... www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

New material changes color and texture like an octopus Stanford researchers have developed a flexible material that can quickly change its surface texture and colors, offering potential applications in camouflage, art, robotics, and even nanoscale bioengi...

This technology sounds nifty but the way they've shoehorned in a fake **octopus** connection is truly outrageous

news.stanford.edu/stories/2026...

So...my undergrad thesis student is doing a quality analysis of studies found in meta-analyses. She identified a few and we contacted the authors to request their effect sizes and other variables for the studies in their papers.

Here's what happened:

scientiapsychiatrica.com/index.php/Sc...

New sign for my meditation room

A War on Facts About Thanksgiving Dinner We don’t need to do this every year.

Is there any lower form of journalism than the "holiday debunker"?

Here I inaugurate a new series of holiday-debunker debunkers.

First up: DON'T BELIEVE THE MYTH ABOUT THE MYTH ABOUT THE 'TURKEY COMA'

www.theatlantic.com/health/2025/...

This Evidence Fundamentally Shifts the Debate About the HPV Vaccine - Absolutely Maybe We’ve had to wait a long time to get to this point. If cervical cancer develops after HPV infection, it will take…

Surrogate outcomes

Screening versus prevention schools of thought

And much more in this extremely readable @hildabast.bsky.social post absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2025/11/24/t...

(Remember Nordic Cochrane aka Gøtzsche went off the rails a few years ago? This is the outcome)

Last year, the Canadian government ordered a flock of ostriches to be killed after some contracted bird flu. The movement to save the birds became a right-wing cause célèbre—and sparked a standoff with authorities, @engber.bsky.social reports: https://theatln.tc/8UCgg88M

All the Ostriches Must Die How the plight of a few hundred birds in Canada became an all-out fight for freedom

Today is the day you read @engber.bsky.social’s ostrich-murder story.

The Company Quietly Funneling Paywalled Articles to AI Developers “You shouldn’t have put your content on the internet if you didn’t want it to be on the internet,” Common Crawl’s executive director says.

Well that’s one way to think about intellectual property…

Common Crawl’s Rich Skrenta: “You shouldn’t have put your content on the internet if you didn’t want it to be on the internet.”

Must-read Alex Reisner:

www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

A Calculator’s Most Important Button Has Been Removed This is clearly a mistake.

I have just discovered that Apple brought back the C/AC button in the calculator app in iOS 26, an act I take full credit for.