I Have a Half Mind to Donate My Brain to Science Highlight Dara Bramson’s grandmother decided to donate her brain to science, so Bramson visited the donation center to learn how iot all works.
Feature The Strike: Chemicals, Cancer, and the Fight for Health Care Feature Workers at Momentive Performance Materials had given their lives to the chemical plant. The strike was supposed to save what little they had left.
Feature Chasing the Man Who Caught the Storm: An Interview With Brantley Hargrove Feature “If you’ve had the luck of actually seeing a tornado, man, that’s like nicotine. It gets under your skin.”
Feature As Innocuous as Plant No. 1 Feature William Vollman enters the radioactive red zone to visit the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
Feature Where Have You Hidden the Cholera? Feature In Mozambique and around the world — and throughout history — cholera outbreaks have caused riots. Why? And what does it have to do with bicycles?
Before We All Teach Someone a Lesson Highlight Online harassment gets out of hand constantly. Can prosocial bots help turn the tide of anonymous interactions before people become abusive?
The Amateur Investigators of the American West Highlight When 66-year-old Bill Ewasko got lost near Joshua Tree National Park, the case spawned a network of amateur investigators obsessed with finding him.
It’s Time for Real Talk About Aliens Highlight No time in human history has presented clearer, more compelling evidence that something unexplained is interacting with human beings, be they aliens or UFOs.
Feature The Way We Treat Our Pets Is More Paleolithic Than Medieval Feature Hunter-gatherers tended to think of pets as part of the family, and so do we. But in other time periods, intimacy with animals has been more taboo.
How Do You Control One of Nature’s Biggest Rivers? Highlight The Mississippi River’s infrastructure is aging, and no one can agree who should fix it.
Climate Change Is Personal for These Alaskan Women Highlight Here are the voices of the Alaskans threatened by climate change.
Feature Welcome to the Center of the Universe Feature For the men and women who use the Deep Space Network to talk to the heavens, failure is not an option.
Feature The Quest for the Collision Zone: An Arctic Expedition Feature Geologists on a mission to vindicate their theory of a lost mountain range discover something even more significant buried beneath the ice.
Struggling to Balance Business and Conservation in the Amazon Basin Highlight Driving through the Amazon Basin on a single road to see whether Brazil can balance economic development with rainforest conservation.
Feature A Toxic Tour Through Underground Ohio Feature A booming injection well industry is pumping toxic waste deep into the earth in Ohio’s rural towns.
Reconnecting with Nature, and with Wi-Fi Highlight What does a naturalist do at the end of their career!? Retire in nature, of course.
Longreads Best of 2017: Science, Technology, and Business Writing Reading List We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in business, tech, and science writing.
Black Women’s Maternal Mortality Rates in the US are Staggeringly High Highlight Shalon Irving was educated, insured, and well-supported by family and friends. She still became a casualty of missed opportunities and neglect by healthcare providers.
Feature I Think, Therefore I Am Getting the Goddamned Epidural Feature On midwives, metaphysics, and intensely natural births.
The Planet Is Pissed and Wants You Outta Here Highlight Massive volcanic events are the cause of most global mass extinctions. When will the next one destroy life on earth?
The Aftermarket for (Human) Spare Parts Highlight “What they are doing is profiting from the sale of humans.”
What Makes a Disability Undesirable? Commentary Should we try to correct disabilities to help the disabled, or make their existence easier for the abled?
The Dream of a Perfect Android Highlight Hiroshi Ishiguro has spent his career creating robots. But does he know enough about humans to make them lifelike?
The Sacred Right of Universal Narcotic Entitlement Highlight Inventing maladies and marketing drugs to relieve them isn’t a new m.o. for pharmaceutical companies. OxyContin is its fullest and most terrible expression.
Feature We Should Be Talking About the Effect of Climate Change on Cities Feature But we’re not. Instead, the effects on cities tend to be edited out or statistically minimized.
Scientific Conferences Are Filled with Spies Highlight The world’s intelligence agencies send operatives to scientific conferences to collect information and protect themselves.
Feature An Interview with MacArthur ‘Genius’ Jason De León Feature The anthropologist studies the objects left behind by migrants as they cross the border.
We Need to Talk About Madness: A Reading List Commentary Talking about it is terrifying, but not talking about it is deadly.
Civilization Was Supposed to Make Our Lives Better, Right? Highlight Cultivating crops led to permanent settlements, but also greed and exploitation. Was it all worth it?
Mothering Is Not the Enemy of Creative Work Highlight Journalist Erika Hayasaki uses science to show how motherhood can improve creativity.
