Soil

Since 2010, Kelly Carlisle has been breaking new ground—literally— for youngsters in East Oakland and beyond, using an urban farm to inspire them to engage with the world as curious citizens. “Part of my work,” she says, “is to make sure we expand their worldview.”

Could a small, controversial farmer in Northern California have found the most effective way to grow food in a warming world? With gross income of more than $100,000 an acre, Paul Kaiser certainly thinks so.

The blind spots in the American West’s water systems are in full display in Ventura County, a coastal region of Central California that happens to hold the most lucrative farmland in the state. Equally abundant, and somewhat in progress, are opportunities for enlightenment. Which path will prevail?

Since the communist revolution of 1959, Cuba has been on an economic rollercoaster. The country has lurched from dependency to self-sufficiency, in a bubble of isolation where technological time stopped. Our correspondent visits the artists and self-taught engineers who have kept Cuba running throughout its bizarre ride.

There are many prized vintages from Valpolicella, a postcard-perfect town near Verona, Italy, known for its rich, slightly sweet wines. Over the years, however, as many of these wines have gotten only sweeter, one vineyard, Bertani, has remained true to the old traditions. The result: a complex, unusually balanced wine called Amarone. Our wine correspondent sets out in search of its secret.

Dr. Drew Ramsey, one of the founders of “National Kale Day,” now observed annually in October, has watched the media attention to Ernie Hubbard’s findings with some amusement. To him, the whole idea of a nation eating kale in dangerous excess is absurd. Even today, after all of kale’s trendiness, “The average American eats 2…

Back in 1978, John Emsley, a British chemistry professor and science writer, summed up the case against thallium, a heavy metal that is one of chemistry’s basic elements, for The New Scientist. “If ever an element was cursed at birth, that element was thallium,” he wrote. The mystery writer Agatha Christie also knew a thing…

A California biologist found toxic levels of heavy metals in kale, got slammed for it on the internet, and then found evidence that at least one of the toxins could be even more troublesome than he had thought.

Our burly white pickup truck is rolling down the highway about 10 miles east of Oaxaca, Mexico, when the ominous dilemma that will define the future of mezcal rises into view. To my left, sitting beside me on the pickup’s bench seat, are Cuauhtémoc Lopez, a mezcal maker who is carrying on his family’s traditional…