In this edition: ICE fighter, tectonic researcher, prairie preserver, regal grandmother, wild timekeeper.
Search results
These Highly Trained Rats Have Sniffed Out 150,000 Explosives
“The rats are fine: How once-overlooked animal skills are helping humans.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Recommending stories from Emi Nietfeld, Brendan Borrell, Boyce Upholt, Fernando Pinho, and Vann R. Newkirk II.
The Butchering
“It also showed me a kind of pedagogy that exists in our communities. There are no grades in these moments, only stories and sometimes another pair of hands to guide your way.”
Our Top 5: Reads on the Brain, Wildfire, Power, and More
This newsletter is one of our favorite things we work on as a team: a culmination of our curation work and a show of appreciation for all the hardworking writers and journalists out there who entertain, provoke, and inform us each week. Each Top 5 also serves to chronicle what’s happening in our world at […]
Georgia’s Largest Industry Faces a Mental Health Crisis
“A new outreach program focused on farmers is missing something: farmers. But experts are determined to meet them wherever they are.”
A Plane of Monkeys, a Pandemic, and a Botched Deal: Inside the Science Crisis You’ve Never Heard Of
“Experts say there’s a dire shortage of primates for biomedical research—and it’s putting human lives at risk.”
How America Saved Millions of Dogs—By Moving Them
“It is a good time to be an American dog. In the 1970s, as many as 20 million dogs and cats were euthanized each year. That number has declined precipitously. The ASPCA now estimates 390,000 dogs and 530,000 cats are euthanized each year, down from 2.6 million as recently as 2011.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week we’re recommending stories by Andrew R. Chow, Jonathan Blake, Maurice Tamman, Laura Gottesdiener, and Stephen Eisenhammer, Drew Anderson, and Ben Buckland.
The Miraculous Journey of a Captive-Bred Hermit Crab
“A self-taught crab enthusiast is doing something remarkable — breeding land hermit crabs in her home.”


