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Posted inEditor's Pick
How to Speak Honeybee
“By buzzing and quivering, leaning and turning, bees communicate remarkably accurate information.”
Posted inCulture, History, Nonfiction, Reading List
What We Save, What We Destroy: A Reading List on Difficult Heritage
The present we inhabit is shaped by the mixed legacies of the past.
Posted inCuration, Nonfiction, Top 5
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend notable features and essays by Jackie Flynn Mogensen, Justin Heckert, Gloria Liu, Sharon Levy, and Mychal Denzel Smith.
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Plane of Monkeys, a Pandemic, and a Botched Deal: Inside the Science Crisis You’ve Never Heard Of
In May 2020, a plane full of monkeys, intended for COVID-19 research, was supposed to depart Mauritius. But it never did. So, who purchased the monkeys? What lab was their final destination? When Jackie Flynn Mogensen began to investigate why the flight didn’t take off as planned, she discovered a whole lot more about the […]
Posted inCulture, Nonfiction, Reading List, Story
What We Remember: A Reading List on Archives
Why do we keep what we keep — and who decides? An archivist digs and collects longreads on how objects and materials shape public memory.
Posted inEditor's Pick
To Study Zika, They Offered Their Kids. Then They Were Forgotten.
“Years after agreeing to take part in research, families of children with congenital Zika syndrome are feeling abandoned.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Racist Scientist Built a Collection of Human Skulls. Should We Still Study Them?
“After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked protests for racial justice around the country, more and more people within and outside Penn began to see the Morton collection as a present-day perpetuation of racism and its harms, rather than just a historic example.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
She Fell Nearly 2 Miles, and Walked Away
“At 17, biologist Juliane Diller was the sole survivor of a plane crash in the Amazon. Fifty years later she still runs Panguana, a research station founded by her parents in Peru.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
How to Map Nothing
“What if we took each sourdough selfie, each Zoom class, each Peloton ride, each Netflix binge and mapped the ecology of resources and services that have made it possible for some of us? And at the same time impossible for others?” On pandemic maps and the Great Pause.