Libby Copeland

Writer. Editor. Cultural Spelunker.

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Kate’s Still Here (Esquire.com, Winner of Hearst Magazines’ 2017 Editorial Excellence Awards)

Libby Copeland November 30, 2017

Deloy Oberlin didn’t know how much time his wife had left, but he knew he wanted to spend their final days together fulfilling her last wish.

Categories: Articles, Best Of, Esquire.com, Science Tags: alternative death practices, Deloy Oberlin, home funerals, Kate Oberlin

She thought she was Irish, until a DNA test opened a 100-year-old mystery (The Washington Post, Longreads Best of 2017)

Libby Copeland November 15, 2017

If the information Alice Collins Plebuch was seeing on her computer screen was correct, it posed a fundamental mystery about her very identity. It meant one of her parents wasn’t who he or she was supposed to be — and, by extension, neither was she. We are only just beginning to grapple with what it means to cheaply and easily uncover our genetic heritage.

Categories: Best Of, Science, Technology, Washington Post Tags: Alice Collins Plebuch, at-home DNA testing, DNA, recreational genomics

Is your persimmon soap infused with geisha wisdom? The precious world of artisanal beauty.

Libby Copeland March 27, 2017

The brands may be small-scale and homespun, but artisanal beauty is fast becoming a big business, with more and more dedicated websites and retail outlets cropping up.

Categories: Marketing, Pop Culture, Washington Post Tags: artisanal beauty, credo beauty, NPD Group, persimmon soap

What’s Up With Penthouse Magazine’s New Female, Feminist CEO? (Q&A)

Libby Copeland March 27, 2017

“I did a visually great piece where a woman was in a cage, and she came out and drank milk out of a bowl like a cat. I thought it was hot, so if it turns me on, I’m all about that. Is that an abrogation of feminist thinking if a woman is turned on by putting herself in a submissive situation?”

Categories: Articles, Esquire.com, Gender, Pop Culture Tags: feminism, Kelly Holland, Penthouse magazine

Our messed-up relationship with food has a long history. It started with butter.

Libby Copeland March 27, 2017

Butter’s story is a very American story, because the arc of its vilification and subsequent redemption is a parable for how we get food wrong time and again. We alternately demonize and idealize individual ingredients — not just butter but also sugar, caffeine, red wine and supposed miracle foods featured on “The Dr. Oz Show” — and in doing so, we miss the big picture.

Categories: Marketing, Pop Culture, Washington Post Tags: butter, carbohydrates, elaine khosrova, fat, nutritional science, obesity

The Gowanus Canal’s Beacon of Hope

Libby Copeland January 29, 2016

But the mechanical robot is impervious to the rats and the stink of the Gowanus Canal, a mechanical scientist willing to swim where few humans would dare.

Categories: Environment, Pacific Standard, Technology Tags: Gowanus Canal, pollution, robotics

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