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History & Society
Trace how culture, power, and ideas shape societies across time.
Bilingualism confers various mental health and social benefits. Perhaps knowing a second alphabet confers even more.
All roads may not lead to Rome, but many of them lead to wealth and prosperity — even 1,500 years after the fall of the Roman Empire.
Psychologists are finding that moral code violations can leave an enduring mark — and may require new types of therapy.
By studying the dwarf galaxy Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte ~3 million light-years away, JWST reveals the Universe's star-forming history firsthand.
Mahāyāna is the most popular type of Buddhism in the world today.
5mins
Bo Seo, Harvard’s former debate coach, explains a good argument.
There are different types of atheism and atheists. In general, they can be classified as the non-religious, the non-believers, and agnostics.
An independent researcher looks into why there's such strong opposition to her research.
Ancient humans may have evolved to slumber efficiently — and in a crowd.
Every time our Universe cools below a critical threshold, we fall out of equilibrium. That's the best thing that ever happened to us.
These ten maps provide a fascinating insight into the impact that soccer (sorry, football) has had worldwide.
It's on a 100,000-year timescale, though, so the next few centuries might not be so comfortable.
"All moments past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist."
The larger truth on the streets is that no one uses just one drug anymore.
Historical analyses reveal that crises almost always yield surprising benefits.
7mins
A psychiatrist studied 1,000 near-death experiences. Here’s what he discovered.
The word “turkey” can refer to everything from the bird itself to a populous Eurasian country to movie flops.
Airports are like mini-cities: they have places of worship, policing, hotels, fine dining, shopping, and mass transit.
8mins
He lived with a tribe of hunter-gatherers to witness how an ancient culture survives one of the most brutal climates on Earth. His learnings may surprise you.