A friend of mine is now a contributing editor at a new-ish online publishing company called Matter, which covers in-depth stories on science and technology. It’s one of a growing number of journalism sites that seeks to publish long-form, narrative pieces about subjects affecting our lives and our world today (see also: LongReads.org and Byliner.com).

At Matter, which was funded initially by a crowd-sourcing campaign on Kickstarter, a subscription costs 99 cents a month, which is paltry in comparison to what it costs to produce this type of quality reporting. They’ve got one free article — a teaser for what you can get if you fork over a buck a month — on the subject of voluntary amputations and people who suffer from a disorder that makes them want to literally cut off their own limbs. It’s a disturbing and eye-opening piece of journalism by a writer named Anil Ananthaswamy. Check it out here.