Myers contends that, when applied to plants, patents are stifling. They discourage sharing, and sharing is the foundation of successful breeding. That’s because his work is essentially just assisting natural evolution: He mates one plant with another, which in turn makes new combinations of genes from which better plants are selected. The more plants there […]
Search results
Posted inNonfiction, Story
What It’s Like to Fly Into a Thunderstorm
The art and science of cloud seeding, from the pilots who fly directly into storms to help save farmers’ crops.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
When the Messiah Came to America, She Was a Woman
On the rise and fall of American utopia.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
The Fullness of a Moment
Half a century ago, the Hall of New York State Environment in the American Museum of Natural History was not only the future of museum design, but also, one man hoped, the future of democracy itself.
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
A Family, a Fruit Stand, and Survival on $4.50 a Day
If it’s not for sale here, Nicaraguans say, then you can’t buy it anywhere.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
On Not Going to College After Excelling in School
I know that for the rest of my life, I’ll have to explain myself to future employers. My hope is that my work and life experience become of such high quality that my education (or lack thereof) will fall off the bottom of my résumé. I’m aware it will be an uphill battle. Traveling was […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Longreads Best of 2014: Science Stories
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories. Here, the best in science writing.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Linux for Lettuce
Can lessons from the tech industry help agriculture ensure the continued vitality of our food supply? On open-source seeds and protecting biodiversity: “It’s this collective sharing of material that improves the whole crop over time,” Myers told me. “If you’re not exchanging germplasm, you’re cutting your own throat.” If all of this seems like the […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The True Cost of Our Almond Addiction
The global almond boom is being fueled in part by sleek marketing campaigns that have made almonds the nut of choice for consumers. Subway stations in China are blanketed with billboards proclaiming almonds to be a heart-healthy snack that makes people “perpetually feel good” (almond exports to China have more than doubled in the past […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Hunger Artist
How Cesar Chavez disserved his dream: The history of California is a history of will grafted onto the landscape. First came missionaries, building churches out of clay and meting out God’s kingdom to the native peoples. Then came gold and silver, the pursuit of which levelled hills, remade cliffs, and built cities along the Pacific […]
