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History & Society
Trace how culture, power, and ideas shape societies across time.
The danger posed by conversational AI isn't that it can say weird or dark things; it's personalized manipulation for nefarious purposes.
Godfrey Hounsfield’s early life did not suggest that he would accomplish much at all.
When you combine the Uncertainty Principle with Einstein's famous equation, you get a mind-blowing result: Particles can come from nothing.
Art criticism is inherently subjective. Still, many critics have tried to make a case for why some of the world’s most celebrated books are in fact terribly written.
Even if a balloon flies directly overhead, attempting to shoot it down with a conventional firearm is stupid, ineffective, and dangerous.
Spying is not usually done these days with balloons because they're an easy target and are not completely controllable.
In the West, discussions of 20th-century painting are dominated by Warhol and Picasso, but trendsetting artists are found everywhere.
If you get married in South Africa, don't be surprised if someone shows up to the ceremony dragging along a smelly goat.
The secret ingredient is violence, and it just might indicate that "moonmoons" aren't as uncommon as most astronomers think.
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Washington University professor John Inazu tells us how we can make peace inside a raging culture war.
How to say “I love you” in Basque, the "most loving" cities around the world, and where most of America’s singles live — and so much more!
To do more, it sometimes pays to do nothing at all.
Instead of walking a mile in someone’s shoes, try reading a chapter in their book.
Sex, it turns out, isn’t as easy or simple as popular culture might lead us to believe.
Whether in Russia or China, the secret police are defined by their unquestioning loyalty — as well as by their poor career prospects.
Almost 18,000 projects, brought together on one clickable map.
According to Peter Ward's "Medea hypothesis," photosynthesizing organisms regularly doom most life on Earth by over-consuming carbon dioxide.
A wide-scale examination of early Neolithic human skeletons reveals the violent history of a supposedly peaceful period.
From the earliest stages of the hot Big Bang (and even before) to our dark energy-dominated present, how and when did the Universe grow up?
Video games matter. Their continued technological and artistic development is reshaping the way we satisfy our ancient need to tell stories.