How focusing on the neediest patients could radically reduce health care costs.

With Washington State debating a bill that would force Christian pregnancy centers to be more forthright about their anti-abortion agenda, a pair of reporters hear firsthand what the centers are telling young women.

The story of H1N1 and one of the lives it claimed.

What the twentieth century history of rocketry can tell us about innovation.

What happened when the founder of North Face and Esprit bought a chunk of Chile the size of a small state, intending to live with a select group inside it and turn it case study for ecological preservation. It turned out, however, that Chileans didn’t really like that idea.

Nobody loved chimpanzees more than St. James Davis and his wife LaDonna; the couple spent more than 30 years—and gained a modicum of fame—raising one as their son. Then they almost died in a brutal chimp attack.

A profile of Jobs. The themes: immortality, relinquishing control, and how being adopted affected his choices for Apple. The lede: “One day, Steve Jobs is going to die.”

The decline of the American autopsy and what it says about modern medicine.

The enigmatic life and death of Bruno Zehnder, who obsessively photographed penguins in the ice fields outside of a Russian base in Antarctica.

On the expanding community of American parents who believe, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that there is a link between routine vaccinations and autism.

How to kick heroin in 24 hours.

A jogging buddy collapses during a marathon, his heart suddenly finished beating. The writer goes looking for answers.

Mattathias Rath made a fortune selling cure-all vitamins in Europe before moving his business to South Africa, where he launched a massive campaign against retroviral AIDS medications and in favor of his own vitamin cocktails. When scientists, AIDS non-profits, and even Medecins San Frontieres objected, he sued.

From the 1940s through the early 70s, incoming freshman at Harvard, Yale, Vassar, Wellesley, and several other top schools were photographed nude in the name of science–bogus science, as it turned out. Most of the photos were destroyed, but not all.

“Look, we all know that every city is unique. That’s all we talk about when we talk about cities, those things that make New York different from L.A., or Tokyo different from Albuquerque. But focusing on those differences misses the point. Sure, there are differences, but different from what? We’ve found the what.”

He called himself “TheNoseDoctor” and performed sinus surgeries, many of them unnecessary, at a maniacal clip. When the whole thing fell apart, he left behind his yacht and family, and disappeared into the Alps.

What it takes to recover from a near-death brawl with a bear.

A (graphically) detailed account of a bear’s attack on a father and daughter hiking in Glacier National Park.

The profile that led to the Massey Energy CEO’s resignation.

A stylized account of the fall of ant colony.

How the bulk of the cocaine entering the U.S. ends up cut with a cattle dewormer.

On what you come to appreciate after a short apprenticeship with paramedics.

America, China, and the case for coal as a vital weapon in the war against climate change.

“You can treat a lot of people, and India has,’’ says an epidemiologist working on TB. “But if you have tests that cause misdiagnosis on a massive scale you are going to have a serious problem. And they do.”

The brain of Henry Molaison gave science most of what it knows about memory. Dr. Jacopo Annese believes there’s even more to learn.