The edition of Saturday, August 8, 2026

The Fluoride Contract Went Through On The Second Try

A Clay Tablet Logs 18 Tonnes Of Missing Gold And One Excuse.

A broken accounting tablet from Ur records a failed extraction schedule, an overseer's excuse, and a line insisting the shortfall was not the workmen's fault. Two Assyriologists say it is an ordinary ledger. A third is not so sure.

You Are Not Brave For Printing Corrections, You Are Just Slow

Four readers on the corrections archive, the Null Result series, our headline procedure, and one very long complaint about the horoscopes.

The Collider Moved Twice. Both Times By Exactly Fourteen Hours.

He Read Us For Nineteen Years. Then We Told Him He Was Wrong.

Most of our postbag believes something we have investigated and could not stand up. The temptation is to write for the readers we wish we had. Here is why we don't, and where that argument stops.

The Lever

The Spreadsheet

Antarctic Flights Are Running 41 Per Cent Over What The Stations Need