The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2026

Everyone’s suddenly obsessed with the pelvic floor—physical therapists, MAHA influencers, me. Could this deeply misunderstood body part really be the seat of so much modern dysfunction?

The daughter of Caroline Kennedy writes about receiving a terminal diagnosis following the birth of her daughter, and watching Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., cut funding for the health-care system she relies on.

Finding refuge and resilience in America’s most reviled landscapes.

After more than three centuries, a geometry problem that originated with a royal bet has been solved.

Over the past 60 years, scientists have largely succeeded in building a computer model of Earth to see what the future holds. One of the most ambitious projects humankind has ever undertaken has now reached a critical moment.

We’ve come too far to go back to a time when autism was defined solely in terms of deficits and mothers were made to feel guilty.

Calabasas residents thought it would be easy to keep wildfire ash from being trucked to their local landfill. They were wrong.

When Helene disconnected my part of North Carolina for weeks, my neighbors and I had to relearn old ways of knowing what was happening, and what wasn’t.

Some psychiatric patients may actually have treatable autoimmune conditions. But what happens to the newly sane? Rachel Aviv reports.

Nearly two million people worldwide have lost the simple ability to feel steady. Now researchers have developed an experimental medical implant that promises to restore the sensory machinery responsible for balance

Blood tests that promise a head start against cancer are on the rise. The hard part? Showing that finding disease sooner actually saves lives.

In the middle of the summer of 2024, when the temperature in Karachi was skirting 104 degrees Fahrenheit, a man was walking past my paternal aunt’s house. The sun was high in the sky at midafternoon, and he had just returned from offering his afternoon prayers at the nearby mosque. He did this every Friday, […]

The opioid crisis has made it even more urgent to come up with novel approaches to treating suffering, Rivka Galchen writes. Finally there’s something effective.

The wild tale of a small fishing club, a national park, and an epic battle over alien trout.

Every soft caress of wind, searing burn and seismic rumble is detected by our skin’s tangle of touch sensors. David Ginty has spent his career cataloging the neurons beneath everyday sensations.

The cricket’s song is a story of survival, and so is mine

Last year, tribes in Oregon and California pulled off the largest dam removal in U.S. history. This is their story.

H5N1 is a human creation

After wildfires devastated tens of thousands of acres in Los Angeles neighborhoods such as Pacific Palisades and Altadena, M. R. O’Connor embedded with a handcrew of wildland firefighters that helped contain the Eaton Fire.