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Inside an operating room at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center during L.A.’s “shooting season”: “The season of shootings has begun on time. Last year, from July through September, this Torrance hospital treated 107 gunshot victims, the highest number in the county. “This year, four GSWs — medical shorthand for gunshot wounds — arrived on the first day […]

The writer recalls an accident that left his friend paralyzed. A memoir about friendship and disability: “‘You can move your leg!’ I said. When a nurse came in, I pointed. ‘That’s not a muscle spasm, right? He can move his leg.’ “The nurse looked at Dan, then shifted her gaze to the floor. She was […]

The writer discovers a family secret: “The first time I heard about my father’s godfather was at a family dinner. We were in my grandmother’s dining room celebrating my father’s birthday. It was the usual ritual of slicing the cake with the silver triangle onto the square, flowered plates, passing each one to my grandmother […]

In 1968, an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine wondered if eating food in American Chinese food restaurants caused feelings of numbness and fatigue. Decades of research has shown little consensus on whether consumption of MSG is bad for us. How the MSG myth was born and propagated: “‘The Chinese food causes thirst,’ […]

After their teenage daughter is killed in a tragic accident, two grieving parents grapple with the events leading up to her death: “Inside, Jason realizes he’s been thrown into the backseat. He looks up at Taylor still strapped into the front, hair and shorts splashed with blood. Dustin is still buckled in the backseat. “The […]

The New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg reflects on his early career working as a correspondent for Newsweek in San Francisco, covering Jefferson Airplane, Ronald Reagan and hippies: “If the S.F. music scene (I quickly learned that ‘Frisco’ was a no-no) was scarcely known outside the Bay Area, and neither was the larger cultural phenomenon it drew […]

How do we live with drones during wartime—and then after it’s over? A look at the ethical and legal implications, and the realities of what advantages drones have given the U.S. in the battle against al-Qaeda: “Once the pursuit of al-Qaeda is defined as ‘law enforcement,’ ground assaults may be the only acceptable tactic under […]

This week, we’re excited to share a Member Pick from Jeff Sharlet, a professor at Dartmouth and bestselling author of The Family, C Street, and Sweet Heaven When I Die. “Quebrado” is a chapter from Sweet Heaven, first published in Rolling Stone in 2008, about Brad Will, a young American journalist and activist. Read an […]

They once struggled for funding. Now, Carl June and researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are drawing attention for a trial that uses gene therapy—engineered T cells—to fight cancer: “In their natural state, T cells usually aren’t able to kill tumor cells, partly because they can’t latch on strongly enough. But June was fascinated by […]

Remembering what it was like to be ignored or mocked—and now, sometimes, being guilty of the same behavior: “Female friendships are more complicated. There are nuances and there’s competition and there are magazines and men in bars who talk to your friend and not to you. You cannot take everything at face value. Hyper-analysis is […]