In 2020, working on other science stories besides that one biggest story in the world brought me relief and escape. And hopefully readers felt so too!

So let me share a few favorites, starting with this longread about a stranger coming to town. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/unusual-meteorite-more-valuable-gold-may-hold-building-blocks-life
An unusual meteorite, more valuable than gold, may hold the building blocks of life

Aguas Zarcas, a space rock that crashed last year in a Costa Rican rainforest, has captivated researchers and collectors

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/unusual-meteorite-more-valuable-gold-may-hold-building-blocks-life
My other longread of 2020 began in 2019 as a story about how an ugly, virus-vectoring creature was sculpted by ugly parts of human history, and then this year happened, and well, here's the final piece. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/08/how-aedes-aegypti-mosquito-took-over-world/615328/
The Worst Animal in the World

Every year, as many as 400 million people are infected with life-threatening diseases by the Aedes aegypti mosquito. It wasn’t always so dangerous.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/08/how-aedes-aegypti-mosquito-took-over-world/615328/
Beyond these literary-ish general-audience pieces (and the career aspirations they hint at, wink) I also did a few mid-size features about various scientific frontiers.

Like this, on programmable living organisms. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/science/xenobots-robots-frogs-xenopus.html
Meet the Xenobots, Virtual Creatures Brought to Life

Computer scientists and biologists have teamed up to make a new class of living robotics that challenge the boundary between digital and biological.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/03/science/xenobots-robots-frogs-xenopus.html
Or this, on how a mathematician and a geologist went on a wild ride chasing down a geometrical conspiracy under our feet. https://www.quantamagazine.org/geometry-reveals-how-the-world-is-assembled-from-cubes-20201119/
Geometry Reveals How the World Is Assembled From Cubes

An exercise in pure mathematics has led to a wide-ranging theory of how the world comes together.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/geometry-reveals-how-the-world-is-assembled-from-cubes-20201119/
Or this, on how nobody really knows what the world's biggest superstructures -- which you probably haven't heard of -- are up to. https://www.quantamagazine.org/continents-of-the-underworld-come-into-focus-20200107/
Continents of the Underworld Come Into Focus | Quanta Magazine

Giant blobs nestled deep in the Earth may influence everything from the structure of island chains to mass-extinction events.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/continents-of-the-underworld-come-into-focus-20200107/
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