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Publications

Topic

Travel

The New Prospectors

Every year, members of the Gold Prospectors Association of America pack up their RVs in search of adventure, friendship, and a bucketful of pay dirt.

Katherine LaGrave Topic Jul 2019 15min Permalink

Arts

The Artist Who Gave Up Her Daughter

Camille Billops abandoned her four-year-old to become the artist she knew she was meant to be. Twenty years later, her daughter wanted to know: why did you leave me?

Sasha Bonét Topic May 2019 20min Permalink

Health

Wet 'n Wild

Is all water created equal? It depends on who you believe.

Katy Kelleher Topic Apr 2019 25min Permalink

Best Article History Health

Breakdown Palace

In late 1960s London, famed psychoanalyst R.D. Laing created a radical asylum—one with no doctors, no locks, and no limits.

Alex Mar Topic Apr 2019 50min Permalink

The Trap House-Busting Vigilante of Pine Ridge Reservation

After Julie “Mama Julz” Richards’s own family was nearly destroyed by addiction, fighting back against meth became a personal crusade.

Rebecca Bengal Topic Mar 2019 30min Permalink

Science

The Mysterious Life (and Death) of Africa’s Oldest Trees

On the plight of the baobab tree.

Jaime Lowe Topic Jan 2019 25min Permalink

Crime

My Bodyguard, My Self

The author spent a day with three men in a high-end security detail to find out how it feels to be safe.

Jamie Lauren Keiles Topic Oct 2018 15min Permalink

Science

Postcards from the Edge

The Berkeley Pit is a gorgeous, toxic former mining site in Montana that’s beloved by tourists. But unless it’s cleaned up soon, it could become the worst environmental disaster in American history.

Justin Nobel Topic Jul 2018 20min Permalink

Health

Japan’s Vegetable-Eating Men

A nation of suit-wearing salarymen educates its first generation of stay-at-home dads.

Amy Westervelt Topic Jun 2018 15min Permalink

Valley of the Ragdolls

They’re floppy, relaxed, and they come when you call them. Is the Ragdoll a genetic miracle, or just one very cool cat?

Elisabeth Donnelly Topic May 2018 15min Permalink

Science Food

How to Kill a Fish

Most of the fish we eat die by asphyxiation. But there’s a better way, both for the fish and those who eat them.

Cat Ferguson Topic May 2018 20min Permalink

Sports

Ball Breakers

“The reason women-only billiards tournaments exist is not because the players can’t beat men. It’s because they can.”

Megan Greenwell Topic Mar 2018 10min Permalink

Music Religion

The Bar Mitzvah Party Starters

“Meir Kay is a bar mitzvah party motivator.”

Jen Doll Topic Dec 2017 30min Permalink

History

‘Their Spirits Were Trapped in Those Masks’

No one knows quite what to do with these coerced masks made from the faces of Native American POWS.

Avi Steinberg Topic Dec 2017 15min Permalink

Crime Media

The True, Twisted Story of Amityville Horror

Some players, from the start, were up front about admitting it was a hoax. Others insisted, to their graves, that the story was true, that the Lutz family had been haunted by something. It’s just that the something may not have been paranormal at all.

Michelle Dean Topic Oct 2017 15min Permalink

Crime Movies & TV

The True Crime Story Behind a 1970 Cult Feminist Film Classic

Meet the inspiration for Barbara Loden’s Wanda.

Sarah Weinman Topic Oct 2017 20min Permalink