Longreads Best of 2020: Science and Nature By Carolyn Wells Feature Our top picks in science and nature stories for 2020.
On Trees as Social Creatures and Fungi as the ‘Fabric of the Forest’ By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight Trees were previously seen as individual and solitary organisms. But the research of Suzanne Simard shows otherwise.
‘Anyone Can Walk in the Woods, But Who Truly Knows Them?’ By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight Tristan McConnell writes about the forests of Mount Kenya, and the people there with a deep understanding of the land and the trees.
‘I Saw It on Instagram, I Had to Come’: The Desire to Document Ourselves in Nature By Cheri Lucas Rowlands Highlight Are Instagrammers and selfie culture destroying the outdoors? At Outside, Lisa Chase sets off to find out.
Risking Your Life For a Selfie By Carolyn Wells Highlight “With the right hashtag, anyone can view thousands of potential destinations — and choose which to visit based on aesthetics alone.”
‘I Went Quiet…and That Allowed Me To Understand’: The Life of a Molecatcher By Tobias Carroll Feature Marc Hamer discusses life, death, and the lost art of catching a mole.
Climate Messaging: A Case for Negativity By Rebecca McCarthy Feature Nell Zink, Joy Williams, and a different kind of climate skepticism.
What Does It Mean To Be Moved? By Jennifer Wilson Feature We can all remember a time when the wind touched us when we needed touching, pushed us along when we were unsure.
‘The Underland Is a Deeply Human Realm’: Getting Down with Robert Macfarlane By Tobias Carroll Feature “I thought the underland would be — of all the landscape forms that have drawn me to explore them — the most uninhabited. This proved wildly incorrect.”
I Entered the World’s Longest, Loneliest Horse Race on a Whim, and I Won By Longreads Feature Somehow, implausibly, against all the odds, I became the youngest person and first woman ever to win the Mongol Derby. What made me so sure I was ready, when I was totally unprepared?
Pam Houston on Coming Clean, Climate Change, and ‘Writing Deeply Into the Grasses’ By Kim Steutermann Rogers Feature Pam Houston’s new memoir is an ode to her beloved ranch, but also deals directly with the harrowing moments of childhood abuse that her fictional characters have been living through for years.
Duet for a Small Porpoise’s Extinction By Kimi Eisele Feature Kimi Eisele contemplates coherence, the near extinction of the vaquita, and the expensive bycatch of being human.
A Song for the River By Philip Connors Feature In the mountains of southwestern New Mexico, a seasoned fire lookout watches as his beloved forest and his personal life burn, and he tries to imagine what will arise from their ashes.
A Beast for the Ages By Michael Engelhard Feature Why do we love (and fear, and kill) polar bears with so much intensity?
Taming the Great American Desert By johnforristerross Feature By advocating for agriculture in the arid West, Major John Wesley Powell challenged the way America viewed its right to develop the continent.
A Beginner’s Guide to Fly Fishing With Your Father By Heather Radke Feature It was the place he came to feel wild, and I was ready to trespass into the world of men.
Does Outdoor Recreation Correlate With Environmental Values? By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Being an outdoorsy person doesn’t make you a conservationist, sadly.
How Do You Control One of Nature’s Biggest Rivers? By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight The Mississippi River’s infrastructure is aging, and no one can agree who should fix it.
Reconnecting with Nature, and with Wi-Fi By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight What does a naturalist do at the end of their career!? Retire in nature, of course.
Lost in Backcountry Corsica By Longreads Feature When two Irish travelers take hiking advice from a supposed guide, they soon find themselves relying on their wits in the dark.
Finally Seeing the Forest for the Trees By Maura Kelly Feature After a spate of trauma and loss, Maura Kelly retreats to the Hudson Valley where she is converted into a ‘nature person.’
An Oregon Wolf, Profiled By Ben Huberman Highlight A fateful encounter between Oregon’s mightiest wolf and the scientist who would track him for the next six years.
Now Airbnb is Wrecking Mountain Towns, Too By Pam Mandel Highlight Short-term rentals are affecting the character of places like Bozeman, Boise, and Crested Butte.
Late in Life, Thoreau Became a Serious Darwinist By Longreads Feature But he died before he could finish his book on natural history. As Emerson put it, Thoreau “depart[ed] out of Nature before… he has been really shown to his peers for what he is.”
Despair All Ye Who Enter Into the Climate Change Fray By Danielle Tcholakian Commentary A climate change feature at New York Magazine leads a scientist to take on its extraordinary claims.
Teaching a Stone to Fly By Krista Stevens Highlight The perfect skipping stone has “lobes” that act as spokes, keeping the stone above the water.
Sometimes You’re the Bug. Far Fewer Times, of Late. By Pam Mandel Highlight Spending less time cleaning your windshield? A group of researchers in Germany is trying to find out why.
This Land Should Be Your Land: A National Parks Reading List By Erin Blakemore Reading List Underneath the beautiful surface of federal lands are stories of danger, harassment, and billionaire privilege.
Want To See a Polar Bear? Just Follow the Bones By Michelle Weber Highlight In one Alaskan town, the bone pile is a bounty for hungry polar bears and enterprising tour guides.
The Sense of an Endling By Michelle Legro Feature Scientists closely monitor the last member of a species. Is there space in a creature’s DNA to consider the prospect of no tomorrow?
