Each day Reader staffers share stories that fascinate, amuse, or inspire us.

Hey, did you read:

• Helen Rosner on the backlash over Pete Wells's takedown of Guy Fieri's Times Square restaurant (and why Fieri matters)? —Mike Sula

• This consideration of Herman Melville as a science writer? —Ben Sachs

• That the prolific and collaboration-minded German electronic-music artist Pete Namlook has died? —Peter Margasak

• About the similarities between the brains of jazz musicians and rappers, as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging scans? (It all boils down to the gift of improvisation.) —Mara Shalhoup

• This study that finally proves what we've all been thinking: human beings are actually getting dumber? —Luca Cimarusti

• That Stephen Colbert has shut down his super PAC? —Jerome Ludwig

• That Coca-Cola is investing in Spotify? —Leor Galil

• That thing in the Atlantic about problems with American generals that's actually newsworthy? —Paul John Higgins

• The Oxford English Dictionary has declared omnishambles (referring to something that's fucked-up in all possible respects) to be the word of the year? —Philip Montoro

• That the Burmese government freed 452 prisoners (none of them dissidents or human-rights activists) in advance of Barack Obama's visit? —Ben Sachs