History & Society

History & Society

Trace how culture, power, and ideas shape societies across time.

Cephalic Index World Map
These landscapes — of geographical differences in head shapes — have vanished from acceptable science (and cartography).
Cupid and Psyche statue
Philosophy can focus on some dull topics. Luckily, some thinkers have spent lots of time on the philosophy of sex
Keywords: grief, flowers

Description: A depiction of a sorrowful woman surrounded by flowers, symbolizing the stages of grief.
Grief never ends. There is no closure, but there are things we can do to mitigate the feeling of loss.
gaia ESA milky way
Einstein's laws of gravity have been challenged many times, but have always emerged victorious. Could wide binary stars change all that?
An outrageous man kneeling in the water with a beaver.
Meet the masterful con-men who impressed the great and the good despite the astonishing fiction of their very existence.
A man displaying signs of hoarding disorder, sitting in a car in a garage.
Now that the DSM lists severe hoarding as a disorder apart from OCD, psychologists are asking what explains its prevalence.
An illustration of a royal holding a red apple.
Almost all royal lines try to legitimize their rule with legendary origin stories. Here are five of the strangest examples.
A fish fossil is on display in a museum.
Metaphors like the Great Chain of Being can lead people to misunderstand evolution and humanity’s place in the web of life.
superconductor quantum levitation
Is LK-99 truly a room temperature superconductor? These 4 tests, none of which have yet been passed, will separate fact from fiction.
An image of a spiritually enlightened man posing with a celestial blue ball in tribute to Carl Sagan.
In polarized times, our shared cellular origin can unite us in solidarity and awe — from the embryonic scale to the grandest cosmic perspective.
fusion device LLNL
The National Ignition Facility just repeated, and improved upon, their earlier demonstration of nuclear fusion. Now, the true race begins.
A poster displaying different skulls of other human species on a purple background.
There were at least eight other human species, some of whom existed for far longer than we have. Who were they?
el gordo JWST rotated cropped
From when its light was emitted, the El Gordo galaxy cluster might be the most massive object in all of existence. Here's how JWST sees it.
A photo of a skull conjured through necromancy in a pile of dirt.
The Te’omim Cave in the Jerusalem Hills is filled with skulls and oil lamps — objects a new study says may have been used in dark rituals.
A group of men standing in a grassy area at Fossil Cycad National Monument.
Fossil Cycad National Monument held America’s richest deposit of petrified cycadeoid plants, until it didn’t.
An image of a sunset through a window.
How the simple act of watching twilight can radically transform our perception of the world and our role within it.
John Templeton Foundation
A cluster of bitcoins suspended in mid-air.
It will be immensely difficult for the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains to protect their competitive edge if they do not pursue a radical change.
superconducting material magnetic levitation
Recent claims put LK-99 as the first room temperature, ambient pressure superconductor ever. Has the game changed, or is it merely hype?
A successful man in a suit captured in a black and white photo.
Psychopathic tendencies may be present to some extent in all of us. New research is reframing this often sensationalized and maligned set of traits and finding some positive twists.