While everyone's paying attention to Gaza, Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is on the rise—and could lead to outright war. / Vox
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen fired ballistic missiles on multiple vessels, including a US warship, which shot down three drones. / Associated Press
The recent discovery of a new human organ—the interstitium—isn't because scientists hadn't seen it before, but because beliefs obscured observation. / Orion
See also: “The most interesting interaction you can have with the Chimp-Pig hypothesis is to let yourself believe it…then observe what it feels like to have your world overturned.” / Atoms vs Bits
Despite skyrocketing interest rates, Americans continue to spend with wild abandon, flummoxing economists. / BBC
See also: Although the Squid Game reality series discards its predecessor's satire, the show ends up “seemingly accidentally” reinforcing how people will do anything for capitalism. / Vox
Behind the scenes of one of the most technologically advanced and complex entertainment spectacles going: Sunday Night Football. / The New York Times [+]
RIP Taco Bell Quesarito, Dunkin' Dunkaccino, and the other snacks and fast food we lost in 2023. / The Takeout
From large-scale intelligence gathering to the use of microfilm to transfer vast amounts of information, American librarians played a key role in World War II. / JSTOR Daily
On the healthy state of book publishing—which is notably “the one form of media that hasn't slipped into unpaywalled expectations of 'free.'” / Book Work
A reasonable argument for why humor is what makes the classics endure—yes, even Tolstoy. / The Bulwark
“The US Defence Department earns $100m/year operating slot machines used by soldiers on their bases.” Tom Whitwell's annual list of what he learned this year. / Magnetic Notes