When Innovation Fails: Doing Hard Time in the Offender-Monitoring Business By Aaron Gilbreath When 3M, the Post-It Note manufacturer, began making electronic ankle monitors for corrections, it challenged the company’s long-heald philosophy about design and innovation.
When Alzheimer’s Disease Relieves Us of the Pain in Our Past By Krista Stevens For Maria Browning’s mother, Alzheimer’s Disease has dimmed old torments.
Where Were You the First Time You Realized the Government Wasn’t Always On the Ball? By Michelle Weber The 1969 oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara galvanized environmental activism, and Pacific Standard’s oral history is a great read.
There’s No Way Hannah Can Afford That Apartment By Pam Mandel Over six seasons, Girls has not been even remotely realistic about the earnings of a freelance writer.
Alexander Chee: ‘He thought I wanted monogamy more than him, and I didn’t.’ By Krista Stevens Alexander Chee didn’t realize that his boyfriend, M., was pretending to be someone content to be monogamous.
Top of the Muffin to You! 25 Great Food Moments in “Seinfeld” By Krista Stevens From the chocolate babka to the big salad, Eater serves up 25 favorite food moments from Seinfeld.
Coretta Scott King Fuelled the Civil Rights Movement with ‘Courage, Dignity, and Poise’ By Krista Stevens How Coretta Scott King’s “grace, diginity, and poise” in the face of horrific tragedy fuelled the Civil Rights Movement.
Opioid Addicts Are Losing Their Memories and Doctors Don’t Know Why By Krista Stevens How does opioid overdose permanently damage the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for memory?
The Pitfalls and Promise of the Horseshoe Crab, Unlikely Biomedical Hero By Michelle Weber Pharmaceutical companies catch half a million horseshoe crabs a year to drain their blood for medical use. But is this practice sustainable?
The Slacklash Is Here. You Should Do Something About It. By Michelle Weber Is the app that ate email eating into a whole lot more—like privacy, productivity, and personal time?
#Vanlife: Selling Their Staged World, One Social Media Post at A Time By Krista Stevens Is the social media movement a form of free-spirited nomadism, or a clever selling of the soul to brands?
Kimberly, No Longer With the Good Hair By Aaron Gilbreath How one woman finally styled her hair in a way that determined who she was and demanded that her loving grandmother accept her decision as a sign of strength.
Once You Reach the Top of Mt. Everest, There’s Nowhere to Go But Down By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Climber and explorer Cory Richards shares his challenges with PTSD, alcoholism, and infidelity.
Acting With Agency: The Power and Possibility of Heroic Women By Michelle Weber At The Paris Review, Megan Mayhew Bergman looks to history to define what makes an adventurous woman.
‘They Would Try to Love Whoever Killed Her, and Forgive.’ By Cheri Lucas Rowlands In 1985, a girl was abducted and left to die in Winnipeg’s severe cold. While her parents, Cliff and Wilma Derksen, did not yet know the killer’s identity, they made a decision to forgive.
Haute Cuisine Has a Low Wage Problem By Ben Huberman How an army of unpaid apprentices keeps the world’s best restaurants afloat.
Ending Depression With a Push of a Button, But Only For a Moment By Michelle Weber For people with severe, depression, deep-brain stimulation offers an uncertain but potentially life-altering solution.
His Heart, Her Hands: A Pianist Helps a Musician with Fading Memory to Save the Songs in His Head By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Steve Goodwin was a talented musician, but he never recorded or wrote anything down. As his memory began to fade, his family found a professional pianist to help save the music in his head.
‘S-Town’ Host Brian Reed Talks Ethics in Journalism By Krista Stevens Katie Kilkenny interviews S-Town host Brian Reed on ethics and his approach to reporting on the popular investigative podcast.
On the Hunt for the Romanov Easter Eggs By Pam Mandel Kind of takes the thrill out of your Cadbury Creme, your Kinder Surprise.
Queer and Black and Hiking the Appalachian Trail: Rahawa Haile on Going it Alone By Krista Stevens In hiking the Appalachian Trail solo as a queer black woman, Rahawa Haile wants “to be a role model to black women who are interested in the outdoors, including myself.”
The Conservative Movement to Get the GOP on Board With Global Warming By Aaron Gilbreath These conservatives are hoping to rally Republican voters around global warming in a way that gets the GOP to finally listen.
The Barkley Marathons: Toeing the Line Between “Extreme Sports” and “Prank” By Michelle Weber The Barkley Marathon is five 20+ mile loops that runners must navigate in under 60 hours. Sarah Barker explores the event and the people who attempt this race-slash-ordeal.
A Mystery Wrapped in an Engima, Then Shoved Under the Desk By Michelle Weber Waste paper baskets: deeply symbolic, paradoxical items. Who knew?
‘Hopely I’ll See You Again’: An Unlikely but Wonderful Love Affair By Krista Stevens Noah Cho ruminates on why his blond, all-American mother chose his “barely bilingual” Korean father.
‘Women and Girls Were Not Jumping Up and Down to be Interviewed’: Rukmini Callamichi on Interviewing ISIS Sex Slaves By Sari Botton The New York Times correspondent tells the story behind the story to Columbia Journalism Review.
The Inevitable and Magical Life of Beverly Cleary, All 101 Years of It By Michelle Weber The beloved creator of Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins enters her second century.
Why Dylan Matthews Donated His Kidney to a Stranger and You Should Too By Krista Stevens At Vox, Matthews recounts the the long and rewarding process of donating a kidney to a perfect stranger.
In the 1970s, It Was The Police That Made Made Detroit’s Streets Deadly By Aaron Gilbreath A special police unit terrorized the innocent and murdered the unarmed in the years after Detroit’s race riots.