A personal essay by memoirist Dani Shapiro about discovering, accidentally through DNA testing, that the father she knew was not her biological parent. In the piece she advocates for the rights of children produced through assisted reproduction, after decades in which those of parents and donor prevailed, and children were kept in the dark about […]
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Posted inStory
On Truth and Lying in the Extra German Sense
What’s the German word for “the world’s most forthright people have deceit in their DNA”?
Posted inNonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Elizabeth Weil, Neena Satija, Dan McDougall, Leslie Jamison, and Amos Barshad.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Fertility Doctor’s Secret
“Donald Cline must have thought no one would ever know. Then DNA testing came along.”
Posted inFeature, Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Story, Technology
Research and Rescue: Saving Species from Ourselves
We’re developing high-tech genetic tools to pour new life into animals lost to human destruction. Deciding how — and whether — to use that power is as complex as the science behind it.
Posted inCulture, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes, Science & Nature
Here’s What Put Thousands of Californians in the Path of a Blaze
Forest mismanagement, political corruption, and PG&E’s corporate culture created a highly combustible situation.
Posted inEssays & Criticism
Becoming Family
Jennifer Berney explores how queer families challenge traditional notions of heredity and paternity.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Bastard: Neither of My Parents Was Exactly Who I Thought They Were
In this personal essay, author Elizabeth Wurtzel shares the bombshell that was recently dropped on her — that her father was not Donald Wurtzel, but rather civil rights era photojournalist Bob Adelman — and tries to make sense of her mother’s choice to keep the secret of her affair (and her daughter’s true paternity) for […]
Posted inReading List
Tangled Up in Bob Stories: A Dylan Reading List
Few musicians have generated as much music and as much study as this Nobel Prize winning singer-songwriter. Dylanology will last hundreds of years.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Gene Therapy: God Discusses Its Future Possibilities
Unraveling the potential of the double helix could render many of our current medical modalities laughable.
