‘The Fledglings Are Out!’ By Longreads Feature “Peering in, I see that last week’s eggs are now chicks. Tiny bright-yellow beaks, mouths opening and closing silently. This is the magic.”
All Flourishing Is Mutual By Carolyn Wells Highlight “My favorite moment came in the years when my ǧáǧṃ́p would nod to himself and make the official pronouncement: “It’s going to be a good year for salmon.” In that moment, we felt like little harbingers of hope.”
The Silent Farm for Developmental Disabilities By Carolyn Wells Highlight “David believes that the men who come to the farm are able to connect deeply with the animals and the natural world, in part because of the way that society has dismissed them.”
Before Donating Your Body Was a Choice By Carolyn Wells Highlight Whose nervous system is stretched out in a glass case at Drexel University’s medical campus?
Why Bumblebees Love Cats and Other Beautiful Relationships By Longreads Feature On the wonders and benefits of natural relationships and what happens when humans meddle with the delicate balance between species.
Forget the Sheep, Pass the Dog By Carolyn Wells Highlight “The dogs knew the routine: settle down and relax so that the women could cut away their white tresses, shearing the dogs as closely as shearers do sheep.”
The Joy of a Pointless Walk By Carolyn Wells Highlight “Maybe walking into some marshes, and deciding at an undetermined future point to stop walking, was what was available to the Romantics, but I think we can do better.”
The Sickness That Stole the Trees By Seyward Darby Highlight The quest to save the American chestnut tree.
When Death Came to Mauritius By Krista Stevens Highlight “Black waves bring animals to the town’s shore. Sticky corpses float on the oil.”
Taking Your Butt to a Higher Level By Carolyn Wells Highlight “Working in concert with the perfect breasts, the perfect bottom turns the body into the shape of an S. ‘It’s the classic hourglass figure,’ said Melissa. ‘That’s what you go after.'”
The Big Bear Reading List By Carolyn Wells Feature The elusive bear is a thing of fascination, and writers have a lot to say about them.
The Team of Scientists Behind Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight How scientists developed a COVID-19 vaccine in record time.
The Heavy Burden of Breasts By Carolyn Wells Highlight “He covers his face with his hands. He doesn’t cry. He hasn’t really cried for eight years – since he started with testosterone injections.”
This Visionary Chef Has Unlocked the Secrets of the Sea Floor. Can He Change the Way We Eat? By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight Harvesting rice from the sea? This Spanish chef dreams big.
How Vocal Injury Can Change You By Carolyn Wells Highlight “But in ‘speaking around’ that injury, I was apparently projecting a new personality into the world: a more monotone, less enthusiastic, less engaged personality.”
The Household Covid Budget By Carolyn Wells Highlight “She and her five housemates needed to find a way to live safely together. So they decided to adhere to a collective risk model of their own design.”
The Music of the Cave By Carolyn Wells Highlight “Though the team didn’t find the metal library, Armstrong put the adventure ‘up there with the moon landing.'”
Is the Cure for Cancer Locked in Shrunken Heads from the Amazon? By Seyward Darby Highlight Could shrunken heads from the Amazon hold the key to curing cancer?
The Rehab of Big Sky Country By Carolyn Wells Highlight “Daily treks in silence are an effective way to get anyone to reflect on their lives and consider what’s really important.”
A Bit of Mud is Good for You By Carolyn Wells Highlight “Leung says a “misalignment with nature” in building design is partly to blame for our scourge of chronic diseases and the current pandemic.”
Alzheimer’s Before Forty By Carolyn Wells Highlight “Shawn says Jo asked him to promise he would never let him go into a nursing home, that he would help him find some way to end his life on his own terms.”
The Grizzly Attack that Created a Bear Advocate By Carolyn Wells Highlight “The bear, still on all fours, was tall enough to look Mya in the eye. He huffed and gave a short growl. Then he charged.”
Plastic’s Broken Promise By Krista Stevens Highlight “The first one I saw was on the path outside my house: a single white plastic glove, the fingers curled inward like a sleeping animal.”
Longreads Best of 2020: Science and Nature By Carolyn Wells Feature Our top picks in science and nature stories for 2020.
The Dark Side of Birding By Krista Stevens Highlight “Undeniably, eBird … brings birders together and allows for rapid information sharing. It’s also created new—and sometimes contentious—etiquette and social dynamics.”
The Hungry Bears By Carolyn Wells Highlight “For the bears, the lack of salmon was a catastrophe on top of many others.”
The Alarmist: Is One of the Pandemic’s Loudest Scientific Voices Helping or Hurting Public Health? By Seyward Darby Highlight Meet Eric Feigl-Ding, the town crier of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Fond Farewell to a Friend: the Arecibo Telescope By Krista Stevens Highlight “Exploring the cosmos is a way for us to know ourselves. Each time we look up, in some way we are making contact with each other, with our past, present, and future.”
‘Anyone Can Walk in the Woods, But Who Truly Knows Them?’ By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight Tristan McConnell writes about the forests of Mount Kenya, and the people there with a deep understanding of the land and the trees.
How Should We Talk About Suicide Online? By Seyward Darby Highlight “People are dying after joining a “pro-choice” suicide forum. How much is the site to blame?”
