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Sections

Science

Science

Prayer for a Just War

Finding meaning in the climate fight.

Greg Jackson Harper's May 2021 20min Permalink

Science Sports

One Man’s Amazing Journey to the Center of the Bowling Ball

Mo Pinel spent a career reshaping the ball’s inner core to harness the power of physics. He revolutionized the sport—and spared no critics along the way.

Brendan I. Koerner Wired May 2021 25min Permalink

Crime Science World

Global Cactus Traffickers Are Cleaning Out the Deserts

A recent raid in Italy involving rare Chilean species highlights the growing scale of a black market in the thorny plants.

Rachel Nuwer New York Times May 2021 10min Permalink

Science

The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill

Droplets v. aerosols.

Megan Molteni Wired May 2021 20min Permalink

Science

From Its Myriad Tips

On fungi.

Francis Gooding London Review of Books May 2021 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

Science Health

Can a Tufts Professor Finally Stop Lyme Disease?

Inside the race to eliminate one of nature’s biggest threats.

Chris Sweeney Boston Magazine May 2021 15min Permalink

Science Health

Inequality’s Deadly Toll

A century of research has demonstrated how poverty and discrimination drive disease. Can COVID push science to finally address the issue?

Amy Maxmen Nature Apr 2021 25min Permalink

Business Science Tech

A Nonprofit Promised to Preserve Wildlife. Then It Made Millions Claiming It Could Cut Down Trees.

The Massachusetts Audubon Society has managed its land as wildlife habitat for years. Here’s how the carbon credits it sold may have fueled climate change.

Lisa Song, James Temple ProPublica, MIT Technology Review May 2021 10min Permalink

Science

Into the Mystical and Inexplicable World of Dowsing

For centuries, dowsers have claimed the ability to find groundwater, precious metals, and other quarry using divining rods and an uncanny intuition. Is it the real deal or woo-woo?

Dan Schwartz Outside May 2021 20min Permalink

Science

Persuading the Body to Regenerate Its Limbs

Deer can regrow their antlers, and humans can replace their liver. What else might be possible?

Matthew Hutson New Yorker May 2021 20min Permalink

Science

The Living Century

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

Steven Johnson The New York Times Magazine Apr 2021 30min Permalink

Science Health

How Long Can We Live?

New research is intensifying the debate — with profound implications for the future of the planet.

Ferris Jabr New York Times Magazine Apr 2021 20min Permalink

Science Travel

Chasing the Sun

The extraordinary story of two Pacific voyages of discovery a thousand years apart.

Nathan Beacom The New Atlantis Apr 2021 25min Permalink

Arts Science

“Assistance Not Approved”

Her home still wrecked months after a freak storm, an Iowa woman’s FEMA ordeal presages the turmoil ahead as climate disasters worsen.

Hannah Dreier Washington Post Apr 2021 20min Permalink

Science Health

In the Tales Told by Sewage, Public Health and Privacy Collide

Sewage epidemiology has been embraced in other countries for decades, but not in America. Will Covid change that?

Miranda Weiss Undark Apr 2021 25min Permalink

Science

The Wild Frontier of Animal Welfare

Should humans try harder to protect even wild creatures from predators and disease? Should we care whether they live good lives? Some philosophers and scientists have an unorthodox answer.

Dylan Matthews Vox Apr 2021 15min Permalink

Science

Genetic Mapping

On the questions DNA tests answer and the new ones they create.

Emma Gilchrist Maisonneuve Apr 2021 30min Permalink

Best Article Science

52 Blue

The story of the loneliest whale in the world.

Read more

The Longform Guide to Sea Creatures

Leslie Jamison The Atavist Magazine Aug 2014 50min Permalink

Science

Why Animals Don't Get Lost

Birds do it. Bees do it. Learning about the astounding navigational feats of wild creatures can teach us a lot about where we’re going.

Kathryn Schulz New Yorker Mar 2021 25min Permalink

Science

The ‘Green Energy’ That Might Be Ruining the Planet

The biomass industry is warming up the South’s economy, but many experts worry it’s doing the same to the climate. Will the Biden Administration embrace it, or cut it loose?

Michael Grunwald Politico Mar 2021 30min Permalink

Science

How Elizabeth Loftus Changed the Meaning of Memory

The psychologist taught us that what we remember is not fixed, but her work testifying for defendants like Harvey Weinstein collides with our traumatized moment.

Rachel Aviv New Yorker Mar 2021 35min Permalink

Science World

Lab Leak: A Scientific Debate Mired in Politics—and Unresolved

More than a year into the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, some scientists say the possibility of a lab leak never got a fair look.

Charles Schmidt Undark Mar 2021 20min Permalink

Science Health

The Coal Plant Next Door

Near America’s largest coal-fired power plant, toxins are showing up in drinking water and people have fallen ill. Thousands of pages of internal documents show how one giant energy company plans to avoid the cleanup costs for coal ash.

Max Blau Georgia Health News, ProPublica Mar 2021 40min Permalink

Science

The Crow Whisperer

What happens when we talk to animals?

Lauren Markham Harper's Mar 2021 20min Permalink

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