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Great articles, every Saturday.

Tags

Medicine

Science Health

What If You Never Get Better From Covid-19?

Thousands of patients report lingering symptoms. Can research into another mysterious syndrome help?

Moises Velasquez-Manoff New York Times Magazine Jan 2021 Permalink

Science

Gaétan Dugas and the 'AIDS Mary' Myth

The Canadian scapegoat of the AIDS epidemic.

Guy Babineau Xtra West Nov 2007 20min Permalink

Health

The Race to Stop Drug-resistant Superbugs

If something isn’t done now, antibiotic-resistant bacteria could kill as many as 10 million people a year by 2050.

Maryn McKenna Boston Globe Magazine Aug 2020 20min Permalink

Science

1,112 and Counting

A cri de cœur on AIDS: “If we don’t act immediately, then we face our approaching doom.”

Larry Kramer New York Native Mar 1983 25min Permalink

Best Article Science

The Impossible Profession

The life and work of a Manhattan psychoanalyst.

Janet Malcolm New Yorker Nov 1980 1h10min Permalink

Health

A Patient’s Story

How New Jersey’s first coronavirus patient survived.

Susan Dominus The New York Times Magazine Apr 2020 25min Permalink

Best Article Science

The Blind Man Who Taught Himself to See

Daniel Kish is entirely sightless. So how can he ride a bike on busy streets? Go hiking for days alone? By using a technique borrowed from bats.

Michael Finkel Men's Journal May 2012 25min Permalink

Science World

Hell in the Hot Zone

How the Ebola outbreak spread.

Jeffrey E. Stern Vanity Fair Oct 2014 20min Permalink

Best Article Science

Could Conjoined Twins Share a Mind?

On the shared life of Tatiana and Krista Hogan:

The girls’ doctors believe it is entirely possible that the sensory input that one girl receives could somehow cross that bridge into the brain of the other. One girl drinks, another girl feels it.

Susan Dominus New York Times Magazine May 2011 25min Permalink

Best Article Science

A Few Too Many

On the centuries-long search for the perfect hangover remedy.

Joan Acocella New Yorker May 2008 20min Permalink

Best Article Science

The Itch

What the sensation of uncontrollable itch and the phantom limbs of amputees can tell us about how the brain works.

Atul Gawande New Yorker Jun 2008 30min Permalink

How to Not Die in America

A healthcare nightmare.

Molly Osberg Splinter Jan 2018 15min Permalink

Health

Will There Ever Be a Cure for Chronic Pain?

We aspire to a life without discomfort, without unpleasantness. But what kind of life would that be? It is as hard to imagine a world without pain as a person without sadness: a whole dimension of existence would be missing.

Sophie Elmhirst 1843 Oct 2019 20min Permalink

Best Article Crime Science

What Bullets Do to Bodies

“The gun debate would change in an instant if Americans witnessed the horrors that trauma surgeons confront everyday.”

Jason Fagone Huffington Post Highline Apr 2017 30min Permalink

Best Article Science

The Empathy Exams

On medical acting and real pain.

Read more

Previously: Leslie Jamison on the Longform Podcast

Leslie Jamison The Believer Feb 2014 35min Permalink

Best Article Science Health

Never Let Go

On being the parent of a micro preemie.

  1. Part One: Lost and Found

    A daughter is born, four months too soon.

  2. Part Two: The Zero Zone

    Juniper’s first few weeks.

  3. Part Three: Baby's Breath

    Miracles, in little pieces.

Kelley Benham The Tampa Bay Times Dec 2012 1h20min Permalink

Health

The Upgrade

Why doctors hate their computers.

Atul Gawande New Yorker Nov 2018 35min Permalink

Business Science

All Rise

How Viagra went from a medical mistake to a $3 billion industry.

David Kushner Esquire Aug 2018 15min Permalink

Science

Katie's New Face

At 18, Katie Stubblefield lost her face. At 21, she became the youngest person in the U.S. to undergo the still experimental procedure to get a new one.

Joanna Connors National Geographic Aug 2018 40min Permalink

Health

Hospitals Know How to Protect Mothers. They Just Aren’t Doing It.

Each year, about 50,000 women are severely injured giving birth. Half of these injuries could be reduced or eliminated with better care.

Alison Young USA Today Jul 2018 20min Permalink

Best Article Science

Feet in Smoke

An essay about the weeks after the author’s brother nearly died.

John Jeremiah Sullivan Oxford American Jan 1999 15min Permalink

Science

Losing Conner’s Mind

First came seizures. Then he began forgetting words. By age four he could barely walk. The story of the race to save a child from a genetic death sentence.

Amitha Kalaichandran The Atavist Magazine Dec 2017 35min Permalink

Business Science

The Wonder Drug for Aging (Made From One of the Deadliest Toxins on Earth)

Inside the empire of Botox.

Cynthia Koons Businessweek Oct 2017 15min Permalink

Science Health

How Science Is Unlocking the Secrets of Addiction

Not long ago the idea of repairing the brain’s wiring to fight addiction would have seemed far-fetched. But advances in neuroscience have upended conventional notions about addiction—what it is, what can trigger it, and why quitting is so tough.

Fran Smith National Geographic Sep 2017 20min Permalink

Science

Speak, Memory

On the fallibility of memory.

Oliver Sacks New York Review of Books Jan 2013 15min Permalink

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