Could shrunken heads from the Amazon hold the key to curing cancer? One man thought so—and spent a lifetime trying to prove it.

Why is life in this country so hostile to single people?

Will LaFever never felt right in the world. So he took to the Utah desert, barely making it out alive.

Why do Ikarians live so long—and remain mentally sharp until the end?

After 85 years, antibiotics are growing impotent. So what will medicine, agriculture and everyday life look like if we lose these drugs entirely?

Stefan Simchowitz has supported dozens of emerging young artists. Why do so many people hate him?

Why has a prestigious address been used so many times as a center for elaborate international fraud?

The actress Tilda Swinton found herself dissatisfied with the schools available for her twins. So she founded her own.

On sex education and why people are still so uncomfortable talking about it.

Humpbacks are some of the most watched whales in the world, and yet so much of their lives remains a mystery.

DNA evidence proved Lydell Grant’s innocence. So why won’t the state’s highest criminal court exonerate him?

Between 1920 and 2020, the average human life span doubled. How did we do it? Science mattered—but so did activism.

Gary Haase has amassed the world’s most expensive Pokémon card collection, valued at over $10 million. So why isn’t he cashing in?

Kim Goodsell had a pair of rare diseases. Doctors didn’t have the time to look for a link. So she taught herself genetics and found it herself.

Why parties, love, kids, conversation and more are so miserable (at least to Phillip Lopate).

It was a 3-mile footrace. Thousands were in attendance. So how did Michael LeMaitre disappear?

Kathy Phipps was “rescued” by FEMA. Ten years later, she is so anxious she’s confined to her house.

Websites and apps are designed for compulsion, even addiction. So why aren’t they regulated like drugs or casinos?

An essay on those who don’t get caught by health care’s so-called safety net.

For centuries, a little town in Belgium has been treating the mentally ill. Why are its medieval methods so successful?

We are all going to die. So what does it look like?

Kevin Hart wanted a scholarship to play Division I college football. It didn’t come. So he made one up–and called a press conference.

“I always walk away from an interview — no matter how well it went — knowing that there’s so much that I don’t know about that person.”

“We are so screwed it’s beyond what most of us can imagine.”

Thousands of internal documents help explain how, through brutality and bureaucracy, the Islamic State stayed in power for so long.