LONG COVID coverage (2020-present)
Fatigue Can Shatter a Person (Jul 2023)
Long COVID Is Being Erased—Again (Apr 2023)
Long COVID Has Forced a Reckoning for One of Medicine’s Most Neglected Diseases (Sep 2022)
One of Long COVID’s Worst Symptoms Is Also Its Most Misunderstood (about brain fog; Sep 2022)
Even Health-Care Workers With Long COVID Are Being Dismissed (Nov 2021)
Long-Haulers Are Fighting for Their Future (Sep 2021)
Long-Haulers Are Redefining COVID-19 (Aug 2020)
COVID-19 Can Last for Several Months (Jun 2020)
tHE PANDEMIC SERIES (2020-Present)
2023
Long COVID Is Being Erased—Again
2022
The Pandemic’s Legacy Is Already Clear
Long COVID Has Forced a Reckoning for One of Medicine’s Most Neglected Diseases
One of Long COVID’s Worst Symptoms Is Also Its Most Misunderstood
America Was in an Early-Death Crisis Long Before COVID
Is BA.5 the ‘Reinfection Wave’?
America Is Sliding Into the Long Pandemic Defeat
So, Have You Heard About Monkeypox?
What COVID Hospitalization Numbers Are Missing
The Final Pandemic Betrayal
America Is Zooming Through the Pandemic Panic-Neglect Cycle
How Did This Many Deaths Become Normal?
The Millions of People Stuck in Pandemic Limbo
Hospitals Can’t Accept This as ‘Normal’
It’s a Terrible Idea to Deny Medical Care to Unvaccinated People
COVID-Hospitalization Numbers Are as Bad as They Look
Hospitals Are in Serious Trouble
2021
Omicron Is Our Past Pandemic Mistakes on Fast-Forward
I Canceled My Birthday Party Because of Omicron
America Is Not Ready for Omicron
Even Health-Care Workers With Long COVID Are Being Dismissed
Why Health-Care Workers Are Quitting in Droves
How Public Health Took Part in Its Own Downfall
We’re Already Barreling Toward the Next Pandemic
Six Rules That Will Define Our Second Pandemic Winter
Long-Haulers Are Fighting for Their Future
America Is Getting Unvaccinated People All Wrong
Delta Is Driving a Wedge Through Missouri
The 3 Simple Rules That Underscore the Danger of Delta
The Fundamental Question of the Pandemic Is Shifting
What Happens When Americans Can Finally Exhale
2020
Where Year Two of the Pandemic Will Take Us
America Is About to Choose How Bad the Pandemic Will Get
What Strength Really Means When You’re Sick
Biden’s Negative Test Result Isn’t Enough to Say He’s in the Clear
The Core Lesson of the COVID-19 Heart Debate
America Is Trapped in a Pandemic Spiral
Long-Haulers Are Redefining COVID-19
Immunology Is Where Intuition Goes to Die
How The Pandemic Defeated America
America Should Prepare for a Double Pandemic
The Pandemic Experts Are Not Okay
COVID-19 Can Last for Several Months
America’s Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further
The Problem With Stories About Dangerous Coronavirus Mutations
Why the Coronavirus Is So Confusing
Everyone Thinks They’re Right About Masks
Why the Coronavirus Has Been So Successful
The U.K.’s Coronavirus ‘Herd Immunity’ Debacle
The New Coronavirus Is a Truly Modern Epidemic
The Deceptively Simple Number Sparking Coronavirus Fears
Pre-COVID
2018: The Next Plague Is Coming. Is America Ready?
2017: Is It Possible to Predict the Next Pandemic?
oTHER ATLANTIC writing (2015-2023)
No One Is Prepared for Hagfish Slime
The Cancer-Drug Shortage Is Different
The Fight Over Animal Names Has Reached a New Extreme
What Even Counts as Science Writing Anymore?
The Enormous Hole That Whaling Left Behind
These Animals Are Feasting on the Ruins of an Extinct World
Neuroscientists Have Discovered a Phenomenon That They Can’t Explain
The Blue Whale’s Heart Beats at Extremes
A New Clue to How Life Originated
A Scientist Witnessed Poachers Killing a Chimp
North Atlantic Right Whales Are Dying in Horrific Ways
For Smart Animals, Octopuses Are Very Weird
A Waste of 1,000 Research Papers
The Disturbing Walrus Scene in Our Planet
Young Trans Children Know Who They Are
The CRISPR Baby Scandal Gets Worse by the Day
The Fight for Corals Loses Its Great Champion
The Main Suspect Behind an Ominous Spike in a Polio-like Illness
This Parasite Drugs Its Hosts With the Psychedelic Chemical in Shrooms
Hippos Poop So Much That Sometimes All the Fish Die
I Spent Two Years Trying to Fix the Gender Imbalance in My Stories
Every Episode of David Attenborough’s Life Series, Ranked
How Brain Scientists Forgot That Brains Have Owners
The Life, Times, and Departure of Bao Bao the Panda
What Mirrors Tell Us About Animal Minds
How a Guy From a Montana Trailer Park Overturned 150 Years of Biology
No, Wait, Short Conversations Really Can Reduce Prejudice
The Bitter Fight Over the Benefits of Bilingualism
We're the Only Animals With Chins, and No One Knows Why
The Fairy Tales That Predate Christianity
Save the Parasites (Seriously)
6 Tiny Cavers, 15 Odd Skeletons, and 1 Amazing New Species of Ancient Human
pre-atlantic writing (2006-2015)
Longform Pieces
National Geographic - Inside the Eye: Nature’s Most Exquisite Creation
Mosaic - DIY diagnosis: how an extreme athlete uncovered her genetic flaw
Mosaic - How malaria defeats our drugs
Nautilus - The Unique Merger That Made You (and Ewe, and Yew)
Wired - The power of swarms
Wired - Seeing the light: Ed Boyden's tools for brain hackers
Wired - Logging the Amazon
Aeon - Ant Farm
Aeon - Coincidental Killers
Nature - Dynasty
Nature - Replication studies: Bad copy
Nature - Here's Looking at You, Squid
Nature - Out of body experience - master of illusion
New Scientist - Scared to death: How intimidation changes ecosystems
New Scientist - Sleeper cells: How to fight bacteria that play dead
New Scientist - Magnetovision: Birds' seventh sense revealed
New Scientist - The evolutionary story of the 'language gene'
Scientific American - Seemingly Unimportant Mutations Can Foster Disease
Scientific American - Armour against prejudice
Columns and blog posts
New York Times - There Is No ‘Healthy’ Microbiome
New Yorker (Elements) - Consider the Sponge
New Yorker (Elements) - How the Penguin Got its Waddle
New Yorker (Elements) - A Visit to Amsterdam’s Microbe Museum
Slate - One Molecule for Love, Morality, and Prosperity?
Slate - GM Mosquitoes Bite
Not Exactly Rocket Science - Where’s All The Animal Vagina Research?
Not Exactly Rocket Science - There’s No Plague on the NYC Subway. No Platypuses Either
Not Exactly Rocket Science - You Almost Certainly Have Mites On Your Face