Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

Inside the audacious mission to bring a rare toad back from the brink

Love — or at least sex — was in the air of the small, windowless, biosecure room at the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas. Sixteen rectangular, clear plastic bins lined the room’s back and side walls, tiny stages for unlikely romances.  Each bin contained a plastic green pond plant — the kind you would buy […]

What is Dubai chocolate and why is it everywhere?

A Vox reader asks: Why is Dubai chocolate suddenly everywhere?! My husband and I have noticed that we suddenly see it everywhere from small town ice cream shops, national chains, grocery stores — and it appears to be across the country. Since we are DC people, our brains immediately went to wondering whether there was […]

Fast fashion lifted some countries out of poverty. What happens when Americans stop buying?

In the heart of southern India’s centuries-old textile industry, tens of millions of garment workers spin cotton fibers into yarn each year.  They then dye large swaths of that yarn a dusty indigo hue before weaving it into a denim fabric that will eventually be cut and sewn into your favorite pair of light-washed low-rise […]

What scientists saw underwater in Florida left them “shocked” — and devastated

The idea of extinction — the permanent loss of life — is frightening. Yet the stakes of losing plants and animals are often unclear. If an already-rare bird vanishes from the forest, most people probably won’t feel the impact. But a troubling situation unfolding in Florida is different. Following a record-shattering heat wave in 2023, two marine […]

ChatGPT’s new mission is to fix the broken web

At least twice a year, I’ll download a new browser, open it up, and see if the web looks better through a different window. It never does — or at least it didn’t until recently. We’ve entered a new era of AI-powered browsers. They have names like Comet, Dia, and Neon, and they all make […]