Expect the Unexpected From the Delta Variant
There’s no way of knowing how bad things will get in the U.S. In a way, that’s a luxury.
I Know the Secret to the Quiet Mind. I Wish I’d Never Learned It.
Of all the injuries we suffered, mine is the worst. My brain injury has shaken my confidence in my own personality, my own existence.
Kill the Five-Day Workweek
Reducing hours without reducing pay would reignite an essential but long-forgotten moral project: making American life less about work.
Podcast: Is It Over?
Our pandemic podcast is ending, though the pandemic hasn’t ended around the world.
The Fundamental Question of the Pandemic Is Shifting
We understand how this will end. But who bears the risk that remains?
Immune Cells Are More Paranoid Than We Thought
Healthy birds watched their friends get sick with a bacterial disease. Their immune cells freaked out.
On Top of Everything Else, the Pandemic Messed With Our Morals
The traumas of the past year have left some people wrestling with an awful question: Am I still a good person?
Coronavirus Variants Have Nowhere to Hide
Our tests will need frequent touch-ups to make sure that no mutations get past them.
‘Our Next Option Was the Back of My Pickup’
Oregon is converting motels into homes for wildfire survivors with nowhere else to go.
Podcast: Breakthrough Infections and Lonely Puppies
Things are starting to look up, at least in the U.S., but we’re looking ahead at potential future worries.
Putting Microchips in Vaccines Is a Terrible Idea, When You Think About It
Let me explain.
A Truly Revolting Treatment Is Having a Renaissance
Most people who have received maggot therapy would recommend it to others, despite the odor, pain, itching, and pure yuck factor.
The Porn Crisis That Isn’t
Some states now consider pornography to be a health threat. But stigmatizing porn can do more harm than good.
Unfortunately, Some Cicadas Taste Like Nature’s Gushers
If you must eat them, go for air-fried.
Nature Isn’t Really Healing
Some animals have benefited from pandemic lockdowns. Others, not so much.
Farewell to Masks (For Now)
The value of masks is falling. But it may rise again.
Podcast: It’s Time to Tango
Lots of your questions about the future after COVID-19 get answered, and one listener gives us a little history lesson.
What Breakthrough Infections Can Tell Us
Post-vaccination infections reveal how effective vaccines are—and which variants are sneaking past our defenses.
All the Sad, Lonely Pandemic Puppies
How are dogs that have never been apart from their owners going to deal with post-pandemic life?
The Truth About Deinstitutionalization
A popular theory links the closing of state psychiatric hospitals to the increased incarceration of people with mental illness. But the reality is more complicated.