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Cultural Anthropology
The stench of death is actually fairly pleasant.
Sweet, bitter, salty, sour. These are the four basic tastes we were taught in grade school. But there is a fifth: umami. And it's everywhere.
The mountain can generate lenticular clouds, which may contribute to its supernatural reputation.
Nero’s reputation as one of the most malevolent emperors in Roman history might be partly slander.
In Kannauj, perfumers have been making monsoon-infused mitti attar for centuries.
The arsons were no accident, archaeological evidence suggests.
Now that the DSM lists severe hoarding as a disorder apart from OCD, psychologists are asking what explains its prevalence.
Almost all royal lines try to legitimize their rule with legendary origin stories. Here are five of the strangest examples.
Those white, marble statues you see in museums all over the world were originally painted with bright colors.
A classical equivalent to Chanel No. 5.
The crisis of the Anthropocene challenges our traditional narratives and myths about humanity's place in the world. Citizen science can help.
John Templeton Foundation
They had the technology. So why didn't they use it?
Due to export controls from China, the Europeans had to invent their own forms of porcelain. One type involves dead cows.
But make sure you bring the fossegrim the proper offering—or else.
The Source Family, a radical 1970s utopian commune, still impacts what we eat today.
Glimpse into the ancient Maya empire through the writing of its own inhabitants.
Nobody knows where the word "penguin" comes from.
How one man's divine dream became a poultry-shaped reality.
The acceptance of our cosmic loneliness and the rarity of our planet is a wakeup call.
John Templeton Foundation
Modern robotics are creating a kind of cultural paradox, where the best religion is the one that eventually involves no humans at all.
Brian C. Muraresku, New York Times best-selling author of "The Immortality Key," unpacks ancient evidence for the widespread ritual use of psychoactive plants.
Some would say AI is immortal and all-knowing — Godlike, even.
About 1 in 5 adults now say they have no religious affiliation, up from 1 in 50 in 1960.
Democratic freedom, rapturous religion, and newspapers created a hotbed for social experimentation in 19th-century America.
If tourism is the lifeblood of the Peruvian economy, then Machu Picchu is the heart pumping that blood — in sickness and in health.
Wealth concentration among elites was common in ancient nations, but the scale on which it took place in Egypt’s 18th Dynasty was unprecedented.
The amazing life of “Gudrid the Far-Traveled” was unjustly overshadowed by her in-laws, Erik the Red and Leif Erikson.
Seneca thought the use of ice was a "true fever of the most malignant kind."
We might be dining on insect-based Christmas pies with robot-harvested algae on the side.
Some of the weirdest characters in Greek mythology were Athenian kings.