Weekend Reads 8/15/15

Somebody Get Katie Ledecky A Time Machine

As she keeps improving her times and lowering her records, I like to think of each new milestone as her advancing through time, knocking down legend after legend as they pop up. It isn’t just a new record — it’s another period of history in which no one could beat her. How far can she get?

As 'Sesame Street' Heads To HBO, Will Low-Income Kids Lose Out?

We reported in June on research showing Sesame Street helps children learn, improves school readiness and can have a lasting academic impact. Kids who watch the show are a lot less likely to fall behind in school.

The study found the long-term academic benefits almost equal to the federal pre-K program Head Start. Positive effects were especially noticeable among disadvantaged children.

In first debate, Republicans ditch the lessons of 2012

As for the autopsy’s charge that “We should speak out when a company liquidates itself and its executives receive bonuses but rank-and-file workers are left unemployed”? The man who dominated Thursday’s spectacle — and the polls — defended his companies’ four bankruptcies (the most recent of which caused lenders to lose $1 billion and 1,100 people to lose jobs), saying all the “greatest people” in business use bankruptcy law to their advantage.

Sorry, paleo fans, science says carbs helped make your brain big

The development of cooking tubers and other starchy plants made them more digestible and led to an instrumental shift in human development. So we can thank French fries for our ability to do calculus and write novels entirely in emoji.