Pipe Dreams

A confidante and friend to leading members of the left's intelligentsia in the 1920s, later a stalwart presence at the Hoover Institution, Ella Wolfe was usually found behind the scenes. Now, her personal papers reveal the remarkable woman few people really knew.

by Jeanene Harlick

Despite the poverty and neglect of his boyhood, one Salvadoran street child aimed high. But as a young ethnographer learned, 11-year-old Noe never had a chance.

by Jocelyn Wiener

Thirty-two years ago, ROTC left campus in a firestorm of antiwar sentiment. Today, the program still attracts students from the Farm, who commute to nearby campuses to participate. Are they getting enough credit?

by Joshua Davis

They’re tiny, dimwitted and utterly unmanaged, so how do ants accomplish so much? After two decades of deep digging, researcher Deborah Gordon may be close to understanding ants‘ collective intelligence and what we can learn from it.

by Mitchell Leslie

Neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky joined a troop of baboons and got in touch with his inner primate.

by Christopher Vaughan

In a career-driven culture cluttered with "stuff," millions of Americans are looking for solace in simplicity.

by Nina Schuyler

A newsman reflects on the deadliest conflict in history.

by Frank Tremaine

Time magazine's most irreverent writer has eaten fried chicken with a porn star and become Robert Goulet's pen pal. But his favorite subject? Himself.

by Jesse Oxfeld

A donor's decision to withhold part of his pledge payment puts the ambitious Bio-X program on hold yet his reasons have nothing to do with Stanford.

by Kevin Cool

Stanford remembers the victims, binds its wounds and tries to make sense of it all.