Ever since Andrew Wiles solved Fermat's Last Theorem, the greatest intellectual puzzle facing humankind has been: How does The New York Times' "Most-emailed" list work? Science has finally given us the answer!

A team of sociologists at the University of Pennsylvania undertook an exhaustive study of the New York Times most-emailed list. They first assembled a data set based on the contents of the list over more than six months. Then they dug in to see why stories ended up there. Thus they unlocked the secret of journalism's holy grail—and perhaps even of virality itself.

Their findings, as reported by the Times' John Tierney, are a mix of the totally obvious and the Slate-y counter-intuitive. The obvious: A prominently-featured article is more likely to make the list, as is one written by a famous person. Slightly more surprising is the fact that longer articles were more e-mail-worthy.

But the most fascinating findings are also the most useful for anyone hoping to make it on the only list that matters, journalism-wise. Using complicated math, researchers identified four qualities of an article which resonate with the 'email-this' part of readers' brains. Most-emailed articles are:

• Awe-inspiring: Being 'awe-inspiring' was the quality which most improved an item's odds of making the list. These articles blow readers' minds by dealing with something physically or intellectually enormous—a natural wonder, a work of art, a big idea, the indomitable human spirit, etc. People like to share awe-inspiring New York Times articles at lunch so they can forget their own puniness long enough to finish the workday. (Example articles: "Fury of Girl's Fists Lifts Up North Korean Refugee" and "The Promise and Power of RNA.")
  
  
• Emotional: If you want to convince a reader to hit the 'email this article' button, try tugging on their heart-strings with a weepy tale of struggle or redemption. Soon, their offspring will be deleting yet another email from Mom with the subject "You HAVE to read this article. SO SAD!". (Example: "Redefining Depression as Mere Sadness.")
  
  
• Positive:"If it bleeds it leads"—the old newspaperman's cliche—did not hold up under our researchers' critical gaze. People like to share happy things, apparently. (Example: "Wide-Eyed New Arrivals Falling in Love With the City")
  
  
• Surprising: Unsurprisingly, people like to share articles that are surprising. Think, things that make you go "woah." (i.e. a story about chickens in Harlem, or a marathon-running restaurateur.)
  
  

  Using these four variables, we have visually dissected the top five most e-mailed Times articles as of 11pm, Feb. 9th, 2010. Study them, for they hold the secret of Internet immortality:
  
  
  

  1. America is not Yet Lost
  2. Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord
  2. The New Math on Campus
  4. Have Faith in Love
  5. For Students at Risk, Early College Proves a Draw

The New York Times' David Kirkpatrick delivers the shocking and troubling news that Wall Street bankers are so disappointed in Barack Obama that they've started giving money to Republicans. Bankers! To Republicans!

Apparently Wall Street has long been a bastion of support for Democratic political candidates, but now that Obama has launched a campaign — unprecedented for a Democrat — to enact policies that may cut into corporate profits, some bankers are holding their noses and cutting checks to Republicans:

But this year Chase's political action committee is sending the Democrats a pointed message. While it has contributed to some individual Democrats and state organizations, it has rebuffed solicitations from the national Democratic House and Senate campaign committees. Instead, it gave $30,000 to their Republican counterparts.

The shift reflects the hard political edge to the industry's campaign to thwart Mr. Obama's proposals for tighter financial regulations.

Here's a chart illustrating that "shift" in giving, from the Center for Responsive Politics. It shows political giving from political action committees and individuals associated with commercial banking, going back to 1990. In every year since 1994, Republicans got more money than Democrats.

To make his case, Kirkpatrick cites CRP figures showing that individuals and PACs from the securities and investment business gave $89 million to Democrats in 2008, a 57% to 43% edge over Republicans. That's true. It's also true that, according to the CRP, the securities and investment sector favored Republicans over Democrats in the 2006, 2004, 2002, 2000, 1998, and 1996 election cycles. It's also true that, overall, the wider finance, insurance, and real estate industry has favored Republicans 55% to 45% since 1990. This is because people who care about money want Republicans to win elections, and always have.

But what about Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase and Obama's Chicago pal? Kirkpatrick makes much of the fact that JPMorgan Chase's PAC has "rebuffed solicitations from the national Democratic House and Senate campaign committees" and given "$30,000 to their Republican counterparts."

He calls this a "shift." JPMorgan Chase has two PACs. One of them, it is true, gave 58% of its $130,427 in disbursements in 2008 to Democrats. But the other one, which handed out $797,977 in 2008, gave 53% of it to Republicans. In fact, both PACs have favored Republicans in all but two of the last six election cycles—one being the aforementioned 2008 cycle, and the other being 2002, when one of the PACs split its money 50-50. So Chase's shift to the GOP is more of a return to the way it's always behaved and should always be expected to behave, since "Wealthy Bankers Give Money to Republicans" is sort of axiomatic.

WPIX says the New York Times' resignation-worthy takedown-to-end-all-takedowns of David Paterson will now appear on Wednesday. If it doesn't, we're sure it will come out on Thursday, or maybe Friday. Saturday could work, too. And Sunday's always good.

Also, according to WPIX: The story centers on a "woman" from "Buffalo," and the recent explosion in salacious rumors about Paterson's swinging personal life is due to a talkative "estranged wife of 'an aide extremely close to the governor'" who's going through a bitter divorce right now. If you know who that would be, let us know.

Meanwhile, New York magazine's Gabriel Sherman attempts to throw some cold water on the speculation:

According to a source close to the Paterson camp who is familiar with the scope of the Times' reporting, the Times piece will be an in-depth profile of the governor focused on his personal character. There are likely to be new details about his marital infidelities, but the source added that it's not going to be the bombshell the blogs have predicted. "The piece is PG-13, not XXX," the source explained. "Not to say it won't be problematic, but the Aqueduct situation? That's potentially criminal. On his extramarital affairs, the question is who those people are, and what jobs they've held."

See? It's just a few ladies on the side. No big deal. Nothing like that potentially criminal "Aqueduct situation," in which Paterson appears to have handed over a state casino contract in an attempt to win a political endorsement. So there you have it—a Paterson partisan says the story's no big deal and probably won't even go into his potentially criminal activity in too much detail.

We're feeling kind of bad for Danny Hakim, Nick Confessore, and Serge Kovaleski, the Times reporters Sherman says are reporting the story. Because after all this, the bar's pretty high. And we'd hate to see this turn out to be another Vicki Iseman story.

New York Gov. David Paterson consulted with "key Democratic leaders" over the weekend to discuss either a) his imminent resignation pending a New York Times report that he is a corrupt snuggling swinger or b) just talk about stuff.

UPDATE: WPIX says the story's coming out Wednesday.

Paterson has been battling maddeningly vague rumors that the Times is on the verge of publishing a career-ending story detailing either previously undisclosed marital infidelities or some sort of official corruption that will cause him to immediately resign. Today the Associated Press reports that Paterson spent the weekend in meetings and on phone calls with Democratic leaders, apparently prepping them for the fallout:

A Democrat close to the situation, though, said the meetings included discussions about whether Paterson would resign or announce he will not run because of the unsubstantiated claims in the whisper campaign surrounding the governor's behavior. The Democrat spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Paterson's spokeswoman told the AP that the calls were routine fundraising and strategy sessions. She also told Gawker yesterday that the mythical Times story does in fact exist, and that it's a perfectly normal boring profile for Metro.

In the exceedingly likely event that Paterson's spokeswoman is lying while desperately trying to forestall the inevitable, several possible scenarios have emerged: There's the swinging thing, which is buttressed by recent stories in the New York Post about a state trooper on the governor's security detail discovering Paterson "snuggling together" with an unidentified woman in a closet and Paterson being spotted "neck-kissing" a young lady in a New Jersey restaurant. There's also a rather run-of-the-mill corruption angle: Paterson recently delivered a contract to run a casino at the Aqueduct racetrack in Queens to a company that Queens politico Rev. Floyd Flake partly owns, after which Flake met with Paterson to discuss a possible endorsement for Paterson's re-election bid. The Post's Fred Dicker writes today that many of Paterson's aides consider the Aqueduct deal "corrupt" and are threatening to quit over it, and that Paterson's "poor work habits and late-night, booze-fueled 'disappearances' at trendy nightclubs and undisclosed locations" have wrecked his staff's confidence.

Meanwhile, GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio can't stand the suspense anymore, and has issued a statement calling for the Times to—as the Albany Times-Union puts it—"print or get off the pot":

"The rumors about the Governor are a sad reflection of Albany politics," Lazio said. "No public official deserves to be the subject of over a week of innuendo and nasty speculation. If the New York Times is working on or has a story then they should confirm or print it. If they do not, then they have an obligation to stop this rumor mongering right now. Common decency demands it."

UPDATE: Politico's Ben Smith reports that the Times is set to interview Paterson tomorrow.

After the weekend's blindingly obvious NYT scoop that the police department fudges the crime stats for its own benefit (they showed that on the The Wire like years ago, duh), the question remains: What do New Yorkers "at churches, businesses, community meetings and along the sidewalks on a bitingly cold Sunday morning" think about all this? The paper sent lowly metro reporter and publisher-to-be A "to the" G Sulzberger Jr. to find out, mostly because it was a good excuse to send the kid out on a "bitingly cold Sunday morning." Stay strong, AG. You'll be able to fire all those editors before long.
[NYT]

The Observer's John Koblin heard the New York Times is supposedly working on a major story on our wacky governor. The guy's admitted to drugs and adultery, what else could there be? (We're all ears!) Update: More sex, looks like.

The New York Daily News' Liz Benjamin points to a weird letter to the editor of the Post from the State Superintendent, who flatly denies the recent Page Six story on Paterson dining (and nuzzling) with a lady who is not his wife. And supposedly the bombshell story will make the earlier adultery revelations look tame in comparison.

For what it's worth, there is a rumor that the governor and his wife are swingers. And if that is what the Times is working on, all we can say is we look forward to reading them attempt to describe the practice in the house style.

He's in an abandoned movie theater in Flatbush! Previously in "Lowly places the New York Times has sent its future publisher:" A lightbulb-changing tour, a playground, the Puerto Rican Day parade, a Nazi rally, a tree, and a boat. You'll look back fondly on these crappy assignments one day, A.G. Pay those dues!

Don't forget to email us about getting that drink! (I think we missed your last email?)

Here, the original turnstile from the old New York Times cafeteria can be yours for only $1,350. For the same price you could hire Tom Friedman to speak for just over one minute. [Olde Good Things]

Here, the original turnstile from the old New York Times cafeteria can be yours for only $1,350. For the same price you could hire Tom Friedman to speak for just over one minute. [Olde Good Things]

What happens when a group of social media freaks—including Ann Curry—get trapped in an elevator? It is electronically recorded and broadcast over the internet at near-dizzying speed. Welcome to the most thoroughly documented elevator entrapment ever.

Today, after a Times-hosted panel on social media & Haiti, Ann Curry got stuck in the Times' building elevator. The ensuing events constitute a textbook example of how "the crowd" beats Old Media in covering breaking news. EVEN IN THEIR OWN HOUSE. The TODAY news anchor herself alerted us to the breaking news earlier this evening via Twitter:

And of course @jeffpulver tweeted:



and @holaphil tweet—well, you get the idea.

BREAKING: ANN CURRY TRAPPED IN ELEVATOR. We went off to fix a sandwich while awaiting further developments. We figured it would take at least five minutes for the Times to scramble reporters—it's a big building!—plus another five to report, plus 5-10 to write it all up. After making our tuna melt, we'd sit down and read the dutifully copy-edited item by A.G. Sulzberger on Cityroom to learn if Curry and Internet ubernerd Jeff Pulver had been freed from the bowels of the Grey Lady, or if the two were still trapped and drawing straws that would determine the order in which they'd eat each other when food ran out.

But we forgot about the power of "the crowd." These people had just come from a social media panel; the elevator was packing more telecommunications than a nuclear submarine. Just moments after Curry's tweet, a video was uploaded by Phil Thomas DiGiulio and we learned firsthand of conditions on the motherfucking ground: A famous newslady and popular Internet nerd weren't the only ones trapped in the elevator; six other adult humans, including the Times' social media editor and a random Asian dude, languished there as well. And everyone, it seemed, was was in various stages of tweeting:

The situation grew tense as rescuers raced against the clock: If a rescue operation took hours, the enormous flow of tweets streaming from the elevator might shut down the entire Twitter network!

Ann Curry tried to lighten the mood with a story about her interview with Obama. Everyone laughed. The cool kid and the weird goth girl began sneaking glances at each other. Ann Curry held something in her hand that was probably turning her voice into Facebook status updates as she spoke. Meanwhile, the Times remained eerily silent on the matter. Sure could use a fact check with the Obama administration re: Curry's purported "interview," guys:

Finally, more than an hour after the ordeal began, Freedom! "Is this going on Youtube or something?" asked a confused security guard. Where was Cityroom to gin up a quick post about the history of people uploading video of themselves trapped in New York elevators? Sleeping, probably. Just like all of Old Media.

Even now, more than six hours after the original video was posted, Cityroom has yet to weigh in on one of the great elevator entrapments of our time. Social media wins again.

[video by Phil Thomas DiGiulio via pegshot.]