SY MONTGOMERY: Introduction PHILIP BALL: A Compassionate Substance REBECCA BOYLE: The Search for Alien Life Begins in Earth's Oldest Desert PETER BRANNEN: Glimpses of a Mass Extinction in Modern-Day Western New York CHRIS COLIN: This Sand Is Your Sand DOUGLAS FOX: The Brain, Reimagined CONNOR GEARIN: Little Golden Flower-Room: On Wild Places and Intimacy BEN GOLDFARB: The Endling: Watching a Species Vanish in Real Time GARY GREENBERG: What If the Placebo Effect Is Not a Trick? JEREMY HANCE: The Great Rhino U-Turn HOLLY HAWORTH: The Fading Stars: A Constellation EVA HOLLAND: Saving Baby Boy Green APRICOT IRVING: The Fire at Eagle Creek ROWAN JACOBSEN: Deleting a Species BROOKE JARVIS: The Insect Apocalypse Is Here MATT JONES: No Heart, No Moon KEVIN KRAJICK: The Scientific Detectives Probing the Secrets of Ancient Oracles J. B. MACKINNON: You Really Don't Want to Know What It's Like to Be a Right Whale These Days BILL MCKIBBEN: How Extreme Weather Is Shrinking the Planet REBECCA MEAD: The Story of a Face MOLLY OSBERG: How to Not Die in America JOSHUA ROTHMAN: Why Paper Jams Persist JORDAN MICHAEL SMITH: The Professor of Horrible Deeds SHANNON STIRONE: Welcome to the Center of the Universe LINDA VILLAROSA: The Hidden Toll: Why Are Black Mothers and Babies in the United States Dying at More Than Double the Rate of White Mothers and Babies? The Answer Has Everything to Do with the Lived Experience of Being a Black Woman in America ED YONG: When the Next Plague Hits ILANA YURKIEWICZ: Paper Trails: Living and Dying with Fragmented Medical Records.