Discovering why we hurt.

A history of modern capitalism from the perspective of the straw.

The author survives a bite by a venomous snake in a remote area of Yosemite National Park.

My leg, from toe to hip, turned black and yellow and eventually swelled to 24 inches, more than twice its normal circumference.

Joe Howlett gave his life to save an animal that may already be past the point of no return. After ten centuries of annihilation, is there any way to undo the damage done?

On the frontlines of extinction in the Gulf of California, where the vaquita faces its final days.

The epidemics of the early 21st century revealed a world unprepared, even as the risks continue to multiply. Much worse is coming.

Is this the world’s most bizarre scholarly meeting?

The author on his reverence for water.

The journey of a river from source to mouth resembles our own journey from birth to death, an analogy oft remarked, and yet the beginnings and endings of rivers are as fictional as those we impose on stories. There are headwaters to headwaters and no river ever really ends.

What a burgeoning movement says about science, solace, and how a theory becomes truth.

Burt Dorman says that the scientific mainstream missed the chance to wipe out AIDS and save the lives of 35 million people. Now he wants another try.

Engineer and adventurer Richard Jenkins has made oceangoing robots that could revolutionize fishing, drilling, and environmental science. His aim: a thousand of them.

Can we treat psychosis by listening to the voices in our heads?

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

Born at a barely viable 24 weeks, Owen’s life began as a battle for survival. His future is a test for how far neonatal medicine has come.

After the explosion of the Columbia shuttle in 2003, two American astronauts aboard the International Space Station suddenly found themselves with no ride home.

It’s a made-up label.

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

How extreme weather, which displaced more than a million people last year, could reshape America.

The life story of Travis the chimp and the family of tow truck operators who raised him like a human child before it all ended in tragedy.

The inside story of how an Ivy League food scientist turned shoddy data into viral studies.

The idealistic entrepreneur turns wild experiences into viral videos into actual science into a going business concern.

How the disappearing bayou town of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana is trying to delay its inevitable end.

Stewart Resnick is the biggest farmer in the United States, a fact he has tried to keep hidden while he has shaped what we eat, transformed California’s landscape, and ruled entire towns. But the one thing he can’t control is what he’s most dependent on—water.

Franklin Chang Díaz immigrated to the U.S. at 18, became an astronaut, tied the record for most spaceflights, and now might hold the key to deep space travel.

Fishing gear can pose a deadly threat to whales—and to those who try to save them.