Immune systems don’t make for clean narratives, even as we expect them to keep us pure.

A baby’s brain needs love to develop.

Antibiotics made modern farming possible. But as “societal drugs,” their use by any individual affects us all.

Citizens of Shishmaref, Alaska are watching their beaches disappear and their homes fall into the sea. Is it too late to relocate?

The president of Kiribati goes to Norway to bear witness to climate change.

Opening up about medical mistakes.

75 years ago, Marguerite Perey unearthed an element while working as a technician in Marie Curie’s lab. Her achievement came at a great cost.

Why the boom in scientific progress stalled.

Why do people with dementia become lost?

The old axiom that more is better is no longer true.

Virginia state senator Creigh Deeds, a year after his mentally ill son stabbed him multple times before committing suicide.

Mars One says it will send four people to colonize the planet by 2025. The company claims more than 200,000 have paid to apply for the privilege. But a deep look at Mars One’s plan and its finances reveals that not only is the goal a longshot, it might be a scam.

Vivien Thomas was paid a janitor’s wage, never went to college, and still became a legend in the field of heart surgery.

On spear-wielding chimps who hunt for meat.

Walking the East Tennessee woods with a Carol, aka “The Forest Granny,” a woman who lives off the land.

The political maneuvering behind the growth of massive consumer goods warehouses and the health hazards that often follow.

The author of The Hot Zone on how geneticists can help contain the current outbreak.

On what you do and don’t learn in medical school.

Elon Musk’s dreams of colonizing Mars.

“Since 1932, the Gulf of Mexico has swallowed 2,300 square miles of the state’s wetlands, an area larger than Delaware. If no action is taken, the missing Delaware will become a missing Connecticut, and then a missing Vermont.”

Life after losing your memory at 22.

What it’s like to be struck by lightning.

On America’s vanishing night sky and life in perpetual light.

“When I woke up hours later, I really believed I had been in those mountains hiking — that it was not a dream. And I really had lost my voice. I had lost my words. I was unable to say, ‘I am trapped in my brain’ or, ‘My memories are mixing with imagination.’”

What to do about climate change.