Bob Dylan’s Secret 6,000-Item Archive

Two Oklahoma-based institutions—the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Tulsa—have purchased a 6,000-piece collection of Bob Dylan’s personal items, kept by the legend himself. The treasure trove includes correspondences, recordings, photographs, films and two lyric-filled notebooks—whose existence was once merely a myth—that date back to his earliest beginnings as a musician. The archive of memorabilia will become the focus for academia surrounding Dylan’s …

The World of Sex Doll Manufacturing

For his photo series “Sex Dolls,” photographer Robert Benson ventured into a sex doll factory to capture their unusual manufacturing process. Inside, he discovered a slightly bizarre set-up, with plastic bodies hanging from the ceiling, a line-up of mouths awaiting assembly, and a chart of nipple sizes for workers to choose from. His resulting images depict the dolls in an environment completely opposite of their …

How City Noise Affects Public Health

Over the last year, Harvard PhD candidate Erica Walker has been cycling around Boston with a decibel meter. She’s determined to map out the city’s noise to see how it affects the public’s health. “Noise is insidious,” she tells The Atlantic. “It affects you acutely, but also longterm. This is something that people don’t really talk about, but something people really suffer from.” She eventually …