On nineteenth century invalidism and how societies have drugged themselves through tough transitions across history.

A profile of Dr. Oz.

Dr. Elisabeth Targ became famous for running scientific experiments that appeared to prove the healing power of faith. Then she got sick and became a test subject herself.

After being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a 30-year-old woman loses most of her memory.

Why Iran punished two leading AIDS doctors.

Catch shares are touted by the government and environmental groups as the solution to overfishing. But for a new generation under the system, the economics consist mainly of “absentee landlords, brokers and bankers, [and] fish quota that costs more than your house.”

The science behind why high school sucks.

On commercial diving, the third most deadly profession.

Being injured in the NFL.

The psychology of cults and the scholars who fight about it.

The U.N.’s role in creating an epidemic in Haiti.

An investigation into the death of a sacred white buffalo and the man who raised it.

The story of Universe 25, a mouse utopia that became an overcrowded hell, and its implications for the future of humankind.

On the importance of the human microbiome.

Why a type of gasoline may be responsible for periods of increased crime in the U.S. and abroad.

With abortion access limited in many states, should some home abortions still be a crime?

On living without memories.

A mother on her autistic child’s progression and regression.

How the compulsion to explore is coded in the human genome.

A nationally respected neurologist feeds secrets to Wall Street.

Gretchen Molannen was perpetually aroused. She couldn’t work or sleep.

On December 1, the day after this story was published, she killed herself.

On drinking alcohol while pregnant.

A species of jellyfish that can transform itself back to a polyp at any time appears to debunk the most fundamental law of the natural world — you are born, and then you die.

In 1968, the author revisits remote British Columbia, which he traveled two years earlier.

The Ivory-Billed Woodpecker was extinct. Then it wasn’t. The story of an uncertain resurrection.