Ed Note: Another flashback from the archives of AiP this Friday, though a sombre one at that. It’s rainy and dreary here in New York City, and my thoughts are a bit dark today. How are social technologies changing the experience of death for those charged with remembering? Death has been referred to as the [...]

Mother’s Day is forever tinged with a certain sadness for me because it’s the day I accompanied my mother eleven years ago to the cemetery where she’s been interred ever since. Well, that’s not entirely true. She didn’t die that very day—death wouldn’t come for another six months yet. We were in the funeral home [...]

Scared of insects, spiders, or other leggy arthropods? It could be worse. You could be one of them. At that size you face an array of dangers unlike anything you know from your comfortably large human existence. Here are just a few of the many perils to worry about as an arthropod. 1. Your guts [...]

Here are the best things I’ve read all week. The pieces are not necessarily news and could be decades old, and they’re probably longform writing but not always. Maybe there is one link, maybe there are forty. But they all were thought-provoking enough that they hopped around in my brain long past the read. Enjoy. [...]

I first met Dudley Clendinen in 1992 when he joined The Sun in Baltimore and was the editor for a lengthy narrative I wrote about a young man named David who was driving to his fiancee’s house when he was instantly sent into a coma by a drunk driver. Knowing of Dudley’s background as a [...]

Costly safety upgrades, nitpicky government inspection and resulting fines are often blamed as being bad for business. But a new study shows that when government job-safety inspectors make a surprise visit, they actually enable companies to save money—and jobs—for years to come. Occupational safety has improved immensely over the decades, but in industries with traditionally [...]

It’s always nice to get the full recommended seven or nine hours of sleep every day. But life—and work—often gets in the way. And getting too little sleep can decrease attention and short-term memory and can also alter rational judgment—in addition to increasing the risk for some diseases and making it harder to lose weight. [...]

Over the years, eating too many burgers, steaks pork chops or other red meat products has been linked to heart disease, diabetes and some cancers. In particular, processed red meat, such as bacon, hot dogs or bologna, has especially strong links to chronic diseases. But the latest research brings even more dire news for hardcore [...]

Instead of cutting into a dead body to determine the cause of death, some coroners are already calling in a radiologist. But can CT (computed tomography) and MRI (magnetic-resonance imaging) tests accurately assess the recently deceased? Formal autopsies have been on the decline for decades, due in part to tightening budgets. In the U.S. less [...]

Can the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms" help those with terminal cancer cope with their fate? That was the question asked by researchers, who published the results of their investigation September 6 in Archives of General Psychiatry. After all, impending death wreaks havoc on the psyche of not only the terminally ill patient but also [...]

The diminutive blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena lunulata) looks like a sweet, possibly even fantastical creature. Often measuring less than 20 centimeters long and covered with dozens of bright blue rings, it spends most of its time hiding out in shells or rocks near the beach. But don’t be fooled—this little cephalopod is trouble. One small nip [...]