We may not have a COVID-19 vaccine, but who will even get it when we do?

Congratulations to Tim Requarth, whose Longreads essay has won the 2020 award in the Longform Narratives category.

In and around Los Angeles, natural and man-made disasters have been inextricable for almost two centuries.

When things get hard, we look to our most fundamental relationships. This is the story of a son, a father, a camper van, a pandemic, and the ties that bind.

The science, the strangeness, the promise, of psychedelic journeys.

Upon discovering that her mother had been a member of the group Women Strike For Peace (WSP), Heidi Hutner becomes obsessed with feminist nuclear history.

“And yet, even though this health crisis reflects our nation’s political, social, and civic infrastructure, this plague has no consideration for morality. “

“He frames what we don’t know about our planet and what lives on it as a thrilling mystery, an opportunity to learn rather than a problem too daunting or, worse, too late to confront.”

“As he would later tell me, running was the rare sport where you mostly competed against yourself. You could learn without having to lose.”

The book that’s been the most help to me during lockdown is a book I’ve never read.

I will become power-mad and lock my boyfriend inside forever!

‘“Notre Dame will come out of this experience enriched,” she says. “And so will we.”’

Lawrence Wright did it again; Jordan Peterson in a coma?; Myriam Gurba forced out of her job; Woody Allen canceled by his publisher’s employees; THE VIRUS; and more.

A headline-grabbing murder-for-hire plot helped expose the dark side of exotic animal ownership in the U.S. Is there now enough momentum to reform the industry?

We can all quarantine alone, together, in one big villa in the cloud.

“As medicine advances, we have more survivors. But those survivors carry trauma to their graves.”

New York midwife Elizabeth Catlin faces 95 individual felony counts at her upcoming trial. For what? For doing her job. Politics and patriarchy make the work of many credentialed, experienced midwives illegal — to the detriment of women and underserved communities.

“The thinking is that fleets of tireless, automated, uncrewed vehicles could one day criss-cross our waters, making maps where humans can’t or won’t.”

Just read it. And go wash your hands.

“The treasures of wild Florida — landscapes, waterways, flora, and fauna — will soon disappear without drastic efforts to save them.”

Where culinary bliss meets environmental peril, and how to solve America’s poke problem.

To understand this sprawling desert city, you have to understand its canals, whose routes Indigenous people dug as far back as A.D. 200.

One of the most technologically advanced countries in the world pays a high ecological price for its many culinary conveniences.

After enormous lobbying efforts, Monsanto’s GMO soybeans, treated with Roundup, became the country’s largest export, as cancer rates and other health issues skyrocketed.

The muted response to Todd Haynes’s “Dark Waters” is depressingly similar to our culture’s muted response to climate change

We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year. Here is the best in science and nature.

From Martin Luther to The Nutcracker, Germany’s original national nightmare was a tangled knot of writhing rats.

Every year, vehicles on Brazil’s ever-expending road network hit over 400 million Brazilian animals, causing series declines in some species — and Brazil isn’t the only country expanding its infrastructure.

“Each arm, with its own brain inside, moves completely independent of the others. So much so that arms have been known to steal food from each other.”

“The crowd seemed incredible—like a bag of Skittles had been scattered down the slope.”