Top Stories
Stories in Humans that you’ll love, handpicked by our team.
I Married a Dragon
My wife is a polymath and highly accomplished research scientist who skipped high school to attend college at the age of 14 which speaks to her intellectual capabilities. She holds a masters degree in microbiology and immunology from the University of Virginia (She was robbed of her Ph.D. by a professor who stole her work and patented it preventing her from publishing, effectively ending her academic research career, a thing which happens far too often, and which happens to female graduate students far more frequently than to their male counterparts.) and has a long list of publications as both lead author and co-author in the peer reviewed scientific literature, including a most recent second authorship in the prestigious journal Science. She has worked with highly dangerous pathogens for much of her career, and is a recognized expert on Yersinia pestis (Bubonic plague), and Bacillus anthracis (Anthrax). Lest you think she is some pale skinned lab nerd who has spent her entire life locked in a lab chained to a bench, she has also been a field biologist. She worked for five years in the Daintree Rainforest in Australia chasing down the source of mycobacterium ulcerans, cause of a terrible skin disease that plagues indigenous populations there. The Daintree is often called the most dangerous forest in the world, and is not a place most people would want to visit for a day, let alone work in, five to seven days a week for five years.
By Everyday Junglist2 years ago in Humans
Loving the Unlovely
We often talk about love as if it is something beyond our comprehension. Something divine or ethereal that cannot be touched or seen. We talk about it in hushed tones or scream about it, but usually when it feels distant. When we feel it slipping away.
By S. A. Crawford2 years ago in Humans
I'm Still Learning About Systemic Effects
I'm still learning about the effects of systemic racism. One of the mistakes I, like many white Americans, have made is believing we've come close to solving the embarrassing racial problems that have been plaguing our country since its inception. The mistake comes not from believing that many (though nowhere near all) Americans no longer discriminate on the basis of skin color, but in failing to understand the myriad of complicated issues arising from ever present layers of discrimination throughout our history.
By Kenny Penn2 years ago in Humans
A Parade of Shoes
Shoes! So many shoes! Worn, black running shoes bounding past; shiny, red stilettos tap, tap tapping on by; white slides gliding along; steel toe caps clomping back in the opposite direction. Numbly I gaze at my feet… hunched over, my head a leaden kettlebell propped between my clammy hands… elbows resting on skinny knees.
By Angie the Archivist 📚🪶2 years ago in Humans
Pain and Deceit
Why are the most impactful moments in love also the most painful ones? In fact, a lover’s betrayal might be the very best prompt to self-actualization. It will force you to launch a full body scan to evaluate all the feelings and sensations you are experiencing and it will push you to analyze them in extensive details, making a poet out of you. Perhaps that is why I do not hate my ex so much.
By Lily Séjor2 years ago in Humans
Love is...
I was actually intrigued by this challenge, because to me, love has always been many different things. There's no point in untangling the meaning of love, because it's a rope of many fibers, intristinctly linked. Seperate them, and the whole thing falls apart. The tangled threads of love are a Gordian Knot, impossible to untangle (unless you're Alexander the Great-At-Solving-Problems-With-A-Sword...)
By Natasja Rose2 years ago in Humans
so pretty to think
ORIGIN STORY Hallmark once told my parents, concerning their love story, that it was "incredible, but not enough conflict" to be made into a movie. From birth, I was certain soul mates existed, that they found their way to you with the same pristine ethos as a stork delivering a baby in a crystal sky. When I asked my Mother about sex in 5th grade, she handed me a bodice-ripping romance novel and said, "Here, read this." I didn't stand a chance.
By Cali Loria2 years ago in Humans
Her Name is Star. Runner-Up in The Dragon Beside Me Challenge.
Dear H, Many of us look up to those who inspire us. Not me. I look down. I didn’t find my idol in a book or newspaper, in a classroom or on TV. I gave birth to you. You’re sitting five feet away as I type this, licking icing off your fingers from the cinnamon swirl you made yesterday, and wiping them on your blanket, eyes fixed on an inane series of YouTube shorts. Not inspiration material? Sometimes seeing the cogs makes our heroes all the more inspiring, and you inspire me every day.
By Hannah Moore2 years ago in Humans
Addiction
I'M SORRY my depression consumed us. I'm even more sorry yours didn't. If it had we could have been over a lot sooner. Not that I wanted an end at all. But because that's where we ended up anyways, we might as well have saved us a lot of time. People talk about cherishing or focusing on the good stuff... and let me tell yah, having been outside the good stuff for a while I really wish none of it ever happened. This isn't usual for me. I like to think I'm rather the optimist. But with you babe, I spent all my optimism. This isn't to say I didn't have a blast, feel love more intensely then ever imaginable... that's the issue really. I believed you were my one, my soulmate, twinflame, kindred spirit, partner in crime, better half, companion, lover, any other names I'm missing? Someone I've been with in many lives before this one maybe... (I don't know if I believe that sort of thing anymore, but with you I did.)
By Hayley Matto2 years ago in Humans
