Fruit flies helped us win six Nobel prizes in medicine. Architects have been inspired by termite hills. Ecologist Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson explains why bugs are so essential to the world we live in.
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Posted inHighlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
A Fascinating Case of Precocious Puberty
Patrick Burleigh carried an extremely rare genetic mutation, which brought on puberty prematurely.
Posted inHighlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
Health Care Sponcon: Where Big Pharma Meets Instagram Influencer
Health care and medical sponsored content from influencers is growing on Instagram. But is it ethical?
Posted inNonfiction
Communiqué from an Exurban Satellite Clinic of a Cancer Pavilion Named after a Financier
Anne Boyer encounters a familiar system — that grand and easy-to-mistake-for-everything system — at the cancer pavilion.
Posted inEditor's Pick
A 4-Year-Old Trapped in a Teenager’s Body
Like all the men in his family, Patrick Burleigh carried an extremely rare genetic mutation, which led to “precocious puberty” and a confusing, challenging childhood in which he experienced dramatic physical changes — like pubic hair — as early as age 2.
Posted inNonfiction
The 25 Most Popular Longreads Exclusives of 2019
The original reporting, personal essays, columns, and collaborations that were our most-read stories of the year.
Posted inFeature, Science & Nature, Story
An Atlas of the Cosmos
We’ve mapped Mars, the Moon, the solar system, even our own galaxy. Which means there is only one thing left to understand in this symbolic way and that is the entirety of the cosmos.
Posted inEditor's Pick
At Risk, at Home and Abroad
As Joy Notoma grapples with uterine fibroids, harmful biases in the medical establishment, and a move from Brooklyn to West Africa she wonders where, as a black woman, she can find safety.
Posted inNonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes, Science & Nature
The Specialized Field of Fetal Surgery
It’s a field as small as the people it operates on, and for many parents, it’s the only hope their children have.
Posted inBooks, Current Events, Essays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Story
Hating Big Pharma Is Good, But Supply-Side Epidemic Theory Is Killing People
New books about the opioid crisis — “Dopesick,” “Fight for Space” and “American Fix” — have different ideas about who’s to blame and what to do next. Our critic says regulating supply can have deadly consequences, and we need to address users’ pain.
