Our top picks in science and nature stories for 2020.
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Food, Shared Humanity, and the Week’s Top 5
“Once weekly fare, I now have cholent only a few times a year; I, too, am no longer observant. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Which is to say that, while I stand by the choices I’ve made and the life I am choosing to live—different from how I was raised, but no less […]
Neal Stephenson Finally Takes on Global Warming
“His superscience this time isn’t a metaverse or a space colony. It’s engineering to address an imminent threat. After a few years of unrelenting wildfires, hurricanes, disease outbreaks, and other natural disasters linked directly or indirectly to climate change, the idea that the world’s preeminent technologists might take up the cause where policymakers seem to […]
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we feature stories from Gordy Megroz, Max Blau and Zaydee Sanchez, Brendan I. Koerner, Lora Eli Smith, and Pat Cassels.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending stories from Ivy Knight; David Enrich, Matthew Goldstein, and Jessica Silver-Greenberg; Eva Holland; John DeVore; and Nathaniel Rich.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending stories from Viola Zhou, Mina Tavakoli, Stephanie Krzywonos, Maggie Millner, and Joe Hagan.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending excellent stories by Tony Ho Tran, Rachel Aviv, Ariel Saramandi, Theo Lipsky, and Inori Roy.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we are featuring stories from Liam Taylor, Piers Gelly, Christopher Cox, Anna Russell, and Lisa Russ Spaar.
Dreaming of Water with Tiger Salamanders
“There is no more urgent form of communication than going extinct.”
The Remarkable Brain of a Carpet Cleaner Who Speaks 24 Languages
Vaughn Smith lives in Maryland. He’s 46 years old. He also learns languages with the seeming ease of a run around the block — including endangered indigenous tongues like Salish. In this fascinating profile that’s part ridealong and part science dive, Jessica Contrera takes you inside the life (and brain) of a man with a […]


