Global warming is disastrous, global warming without (or at least with far fewer) clouds would be much worse. Natalie Wolchover speaks to scientists who are studying periods of cloudless warming in the Earth’s past, and simulating what a future where the clouds were to vanish once again would be like.
February 2019
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Latest Diet Trend Is Not Dieting
Instead of counting calories and using weight as the barometer of health, intuitive eating encourages people to eat what they want when they feel hungry and dispense with notions of “good” and “bad” food. Guilt and shame only lead to overeating.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Trauma Floor
Facebook has thousands of people in contract centers around the world reviewing questionable content. They make a bit above minimum wage to watch people get stabbed or shot, read hate speech, and watch conspiracy theory videos — at massive personal cost and without the support and perks of actually working for Facebook.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Greeter
At age sixteen, the daughter of a wealthy Florida couple with chemical dependencies found herself facing her uncertain future, tangled in a web of trauma, self-harm, sexual objectification, and leaning on her tight relationships with other young women. This essay is part of the author’s forthcoming memoir, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls.
Posted inArts & Culture, Food, Highlight, Quotes
Stovetop Revenge
Black women take power where they can find it, and sometimes that’s in a pot of hot, skin-searing grits.
Posted inHighlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
The Problem of Too Many Hotels, Too Many Parties, and Too Many Tourists In Tulum
From over-development to contaminated cenotes, the problems continue to pile up in the Mayan paradise formerly known as Tulum.
Posted inBooks, Highlight, Quotes, Writing
When Accepting Support Feels Like Becoming a Burden
When Ijeoma Oluo offers to buy her aging white mother a home, her mother worries she’s become a burden.
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Profiles & Interviews, Science Fiction, Story, Writing
‘Every Woman Writer Feels Like She’s Starting Over Without Any Guides’
Ann Leckie talks about “The Raven Tower,” the erasure of women writers from the canon, the privilege inherent to ‘the anxiety of influence,’ and the power of tradition.
Posted inArts & Culture, Current Events, Nonfiction, Story
‘We Are All Responsible’: How #MeToo Rejects the Bystander Effect
The classic “Bystander Effect” blames a lack of intervention on diffusion of responsibility. That doesn’t fly anymore.
Posted inTop 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Ijeoma Oluo, Patricia Lockwood, Michael Shaw, Mairead Small Staid, and Adriana Gallardo.