Longer Looks: The Rise Of Juul; Children Of The Opioid Epidemic; And New Motherhood

The New Yorker: The Promise Of Vaping And The Rise Of Juul
If I get addicted to vaping, I thought, in March, I will always remember this Texas strip mall. I was walking out of a store called Smoke-N-Chill Novelties, in Southwest Austin, holding a receipt for $62.95 and two crisp, white shrink-wrapped boxes. I got into the driver’s seat of a rental car and began to open them. (Jia Tolentino, 5/7)

The New York Times: Children Of The Opioid Epidemic
It was not until her third month of feeling unwell, in the fall of 2016, that Alicia thought to take an at-home pregnancy test. Until then, she assumed her fatigue and nausea were withdrawal symptoms from the Percocets she’d been dependent upon since the year before. “When some days you don’t get enough, you could definitely throw up or wake up feeling sick,” she told me. “It was easily confused with morning sickness.” Alicia, who asked that I use her nickname to protect her privacy, was 26 at the time, living with her boyfriend in a tiny apartment just outside Providence, R.I. From the start of their relationship, she had been inspired by his seriousness; he had a job in I.T. that paid $20 an hour. Unlike some of her previous boyfriends, this one wore collared shirts to work and did not use drugs. He had a gangly earnestness that was endearing. “He grew up as a good boy,” Alicia told me. “He did what was right, and he was smart. I wish I could have been like that.” (Jennifer Egan, 5/9)

Vox: What No One Tells New Moms About What Childbirth Can Do To Their Bodies
Postnatal care is one of the most under-discussed and under-studied issues in medicine. (One reason, among many, that more American women today are dying in childbirth than anywhere else in the developed world.) Lately, though, we’ve begun to learn about the experiences of postpartum women, thanks to the 4th Trimester Project, a groundbreaking study led by a team of doctors and researchers at UNC Chapel Hill. (Allison Yarrow, 5/4)

LifeHacker: Can A DNA Test Really Help You Lose Weight?
Science still can’t tell us why some people lose weight more easily than others. Maybe we each have our own ideal diet, and we just have to find it. Maybe the people who gain weight on the Mediterranean diet just need to give keto a try, and vice versa. In truth, few diets are successful long-term, but we all keep looking: “Maybe I just need to find the diet that’s right for me.” (Beth Skwarecki, 5/8)

Wired: This Startup Wants To Be AirBnb For Gene Sequencers
We know what you’re thinking: Being the Uber of Anything is so 2014. But hey, science is slow. That’s kind of the whole problem. As more and more researchers rush to probe the depths of the world’s DNA, sequencing services are in higher demand than ever. But the instruments that do that sequencing are still expensive enough that they’re beyond the reach of many companies, universities, and health care centers. So most people rent time. (Megan Molteni, 5/8)