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

For years, the clients of a Colorado funeral home kept their loved ones’ cremated remains. Then the FBI called.

His DNA solved a century-old jailhouse rape. The victim: his grandmother.

What’s at stake in the fight over development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? A caribou herd, and a culture that relies on it.

How much does the world need to know about a deadly bear attack? That question was tested in the Yukon last year, after the horrific loss of a mother and daughter caused a destructive media storm.

“Incels” are going under the knife to reshape their faces, and their dating prospects.

Last summer, Arthur Medici went surfing off the coast of Cape Cod. He never made it back.

Burmese amber offers paleontologists an unprecedented glimpse into the Cretaceous. But it comes from a conflict zone.

Why carbon credits for forest preservation may be worse than nothing.

An “unknown energy source” has been blamed for debilitating symptoms suffered by Americans posted in Cuba. The real cause may be more surprising.

Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico’s “monkey island.” The surviving primates could help scientists learn about the psychological response to traumatizing events.

A bulletin from our climate future.

How the most expensive and unstoppable invasive plant crisis inspires madness and panic.

On July 11, 2002, the researchers revealed that they had synthesized the polio virus, which had been wiped out in the US in 1979. It was the first time a virus had been created from scratch with synthetic DNA. The work was funded by the Pentagon in part to establish whether terrorists could pull off such a feat. The answer was yes.

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.

Anatomy of an outbreak.

How a night of drunken mischief led to the death of a rare endangered fish and a rare prosecution.

The psychology behind our limitations of reason.

Local communities are taking the world’s largest polluters to court. And they’re using the legal strategy that got tobacco companies to pay up.

How Miami’s real estate industry turns a blind eye to climate change.

A young paleontologist may have discovered a record of the most significant event in the history of life on Earth.

The state loses a football field’s worth of land every hour and a half. Now engineers are in a race to prevent it from sinking into oblivion.

During the Great Floods of 2011, the Mississippi unleashed deadly currents and a flow rate that could fill the Superdome in less than a minute. Defying government orders, the author and two friends canoed 300 miles from Memphis to Vicksburg. This is their story.

“Rats are our shadow selves.”

On medical acting and real pain.