On the final two holdouts in Treece, Kansas, a former mining town that is soon to be wiped off the maps.

New research on children’s behavior.

The idea that a young child could have psychopathic tendencies remains controversial among psychologists. Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist at Temple University, has argued that psychopathy, like other personality disorders, is almost impossible to diagnose accurately in children, or even in teenagers — both because their brains are still developing and because normal behavior at these ages can be misinterpreted as psychopathic.

Is creativity in our genes? A self-made scholar’s search for the answer.

On geoengineering, a high risk/high reward fix for global warming.

The story of former Vikings linebacker Fred McNeill and the lasting impact of his concussions.

From prison, a member of the Earth Liberation Front tells her story.

An undercover cop infiltrates a group of British activists, befriending and then betraying them.

On spending six months on the southern coast of Argentina with the “Jane Goodall of penguins” and several hundred of her research subjects.

Controversy over the alleged gold standard of forensic evidence.

Scientists quarrel about the fate of animals living in the 1,600 square mile exclusion zone.

A profile of environmental activist Van Jones.

On the Texas-sized trash island floating in the Pacific.

A father and his daughter’s brain tumor.

I've grown, over the last few months, the beginnings of concerned; he's started to suffer bouts of malaise. Nothing too regular, or too terrible: mild stomach aches, sore joints, general lethargy. In anyone else, it could be anything, etc. In Chad, I grow attuned to the slightest variation in temperature, to the distracted look behind his eyes when food isn't sitting with him.

How the CIA, under a program called MK-ULTRA, used a San Francisco apartment to dose johns with LSD.

Ed Rosenthal recounts the six days he got lost in Joshua Tree National Park.

An investigation into Erin Brockovich and the lawsuits that made her famous.

The changing landscape of the Lower Ninth Ward in post-Katrina New Orleans:

There have been sightings of armadillos, coyotes, owls, hawks, falcons and even a four-foot alligator, drinking from a leaky fire hydrant. Rats have been less of a problem lately because of the stray cats and the birds of prey. But it’s not just animals that emerge from the weeds.

The impact, both on researchers and patients, of a radical treatment.

The rise of anti-anxiety medication.

How a mysterious twitching epidemic overtook one Western New York town.

A chronicle of the 2010 wildfire that burned down 169 homes in Colorado, told via the people who lived through it.