The scene at the Boston Marathon yesterday
  • AP Photo/The Boston Globe, David L Ryan
  • The scene at the Boston Marathon yesterday

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

Hey, did you read:

Mother Jones‘s frequently updated guide to what we know so far about the Boston Marathon explosion? Tal Rosenberg

• That Reagan’s budget director David Stockman blasted Wall Street and Washington for being addicted to the “heroin of cheap money“? Mick Dumke

• That Floridians are experiencing an infestation of African giant land snails? Tony Adler

• That the Illinois house approved a $50 fine for tossing cigarette butts? (But first they had to debate “what constitutes a cigarette”—government!) Gwynedd Stuart

• That even just a taste of beer can increase dopamine levels in your brain? Julia Thiel

• About ultrarunner Lizzy Hawker? (When her 200-mile flight back to Kathmandu was canceled, she just ran there.) Steve Bogira

• About the Voynich manuscript, an illuminated work, supposedly from the 13th century, that has so far baffled scientists and linguists but may be a hoax? Kate Schmidt

• That you can own a historic firehouse on the north side? Tal Rosenberg