“A new field of psychology has begun to quantify an age-old intuition: Feeling awe is good for us.”
research
Posted inEditor's Pick
Getting Lost in the World’s Largest Stack of Menus
“Menus provide a window into history, a vital connection to our foodways.”
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
“Experts say there’s a dire shortage of primates for biomedical research—and it’s putting human lives at risk.”
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.”