The Atlantic

Trees Are Overrated

Preserving the world’s great expanses of grass could be essential to combatting climate change.

The World Is Burning Once Again

We can only adapt so much to extreme heat.

How Wanting Less Leads to Satisfaction

The secret to satisfaction has nothing to do with achievement, money, or stuff.

This Is Your Brain on Heartbreak

Love changes us at a physiological level, making us more sensitive to joy—and to pain.

It’s Your Friends Who Break Your Heart

The older we get, the more we need our friends—and the harder it is to keep them.

Is Old Music Killing New Music?

Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market. Even worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking.

TikTok Killed the Video Star

MTV turned music into spectacle. The app is doing the opposite.

Instagram Is Over

The app’s original purpose has been lost in the era of “performance” media.

The Nocturnals

While most people are fast asleep, some ultra-introverts are going about their lives, reveling in the quiet and solitude. They challenge a core assumption of psychology: that all humans need social connection.

His Name Was Emmett Till

In 1955, just past daybreak, a Chevrolet truck pulled up to an unmarked building. A 14-year-old child was in the back.

The John Patterson Kidnapping in Mexico

In 1974, John Patterson was abducted by the People’s Liberation Army of Mexico—a group no one had heard of before. The kidnappers wanted $500,000, and insisted that Patterson’s wife deliver the ransom.

The Awful Wisdom of the Hostage

What a new memoir reveals about endurance—and extreme remorse

One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps

In a rare, first-hand account, Uyghur poet and filmmaker Tahir Hamut Izgil shares what it’s like to live through and escape the genocide in Xinjiang.

The Surprising Benefits of Talking to Strangers

So many of us have been raised to see strangers as dangerous and scary. What would happen if we instead saw them as potential sources of comfort and belonging?

The Type of Love That Makes People Happiest

When it comes to lasting romance, passion has nothing on friendship.

The Limits of Sex Positivity

American culture still treats disinterest in sex as something that needs to be fixed. What if any amount of desire—including none—was okay?

No One Cares!

Our fears about what other people think of us are overblown and rarely worth fretting over.

The Alt-Right’s Star Racist Propagandist Has No Regrets

Lauren Southern could spew racist propaganda like no other. But the men around her were better at one thing: trafficking in ugly misogyny.

The American Nightmare

To be black and conscious of anti-black racism is to stare into the mirror of your own extinction.

Who Gets to Be Afraid in America?

Americans don’t see me, or Ahmaud Arbery, running down the road—they see their fear.