Sarah Zhang
What It Means to Name a Forgotten Murder Victim
Thirteen years ago, a young woman was found dead in small-town Texas. She was nicknamed “Lavender Doe” for the purple shirt she was wearing. Her real identity would remain a mystery until amateur genealogists took up her case.
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BSIP / Universal Images / Getty / Paul ... The Best Hopes for a Coronavirus Drug
If there is a way to stop COVID-19, it will be by blocking its proteins from hijacking, suppressing, and evading humans’ cellular machinery.
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Erin Brethauer Chinese Americans Have Seen This Before
The lockdowns, equipment shortages, and overburdened hospitals feel all too familiar.
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Getty / The Atlantic America Needs Plasma From COVID-19 Survivors Now
People who have recovered from the disease have antibodies that might help those still suffering from it.
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Paul Campbell / Getty / The Atlantic America’s Hospitals Have Never Experienced Anything Like This
If they run out of space, where will all the sick people go?
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Nick Fox / Shutterstock Why a Tiny Colorado County Can Offer COVID-19 Tests to Every Resident
There are advantages to having biotech executives as neighbors.
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Richard Ross / Getty What It Really Means to Cancel Elective Surgeries
To make room for coronavirus patients, hospitals are delaying procedures that would make major differences in people’s lives.
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Ruby Aitken Deep Clean, Then Clean Again
What exactly does it mean when schools and businesses close to “deep clean” because of the coronavirus?
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H. Armstrong Roberts / ClassicStock / Getty The Small Stresses of Keeping Coronavirus-Free
Why is it so, so hard to stop touching your face?
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stilllifephotographer / Claudia Totir / Getty / Katie ... A Bold and Controversial Idea for Making Breast Milk
The obsession with breastfeeding has inspired a start-up to make human milk outside the human body.
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Courtesy of Todd Hochberg A Photographer Has Spent 20 Years Documenting Stillbirths
For grieving families, the photos preserve the only memories they have of their child.
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Katie Martin / The Atlantic How Hospitals Changed Their Approach to Stillbirth
Grieving patients are encouraged to see and hold their stillborn infants—and in some cases even bring them home.
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Marc Guitard / Getty After 2,000 Years, These Seeds Have Finally Sprouted
Six date seeds as old as the Dead Sea Scrolls are now flourishing as trees on a kibbutz.
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Thomas Peter / Reuters A Virus With a Deadly Boring Name
2019-nCoV isn't going to cut it long term.
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Marco Bertorello / AFP via Getty How Did Humans Boil Water Before the Invention of Pots?
Roasting would have been easy. But re-creating the paleo way of boiling water requires a bit more imagination.
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The Virus Buried in a 100-Year-Old Lung
Scientists have managed to sequence the genome of a measles virus that infected a 2-year-old girl who died in 1912.
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Universal History Archive / Getty Images What Happens to Meat When You Freeze It for 35,000 Years
A gastronomic investigation of mammoth feasts
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Arsh Raziuddin / The Atlantic Sleuths Are Haunted by the Cold Case of Julie Doe
A group of self-taught investigators is confronting the limits of using DNA and genetic genealogy to identify victims.
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BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images The Disappearing Y Chromosome
It’s surprisingly common for men to start losing entire chromosomes from blood cells as they age.
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Courtesy of Chuang Zhao Why Mammals Are So Good at Hearing (And Chewing)
Before an evolutionary breakthrough, the tiny bones of ears were part of the jaw.
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Public domain A Hint About the Affliction That Kept Marat in the Bathtub
Ever since the French revolutionary’s assassination in a bathtub, doctors and scientists have wondered why he had to spend so much time in there to begin with.
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