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Cultural Evolution
The 1,200-year-old "Book of Ingenious Devices" contains designs for futuristic inventions like gas masks, water fountains, and digging machines.
Ancient humans crossed the Bering Strait land bridge from Asia into North America. But some of them went back.
Far from practicing witchcraft, the experimentation of medieval alchemists helped bring about the Scientific Revolution.
If comedies do get made today, they usually bypass the big screen and go straight to streaming platforms.
"The Da Vinci Code" popularized the idea that Christians stole much of their theology. It's wrong, especially regarding Christmas.
If aliens are driven mostly by biological imperatives, humanity could be in big trouble if we ever meet technologically advanced beings.
The most important events in history have nothing to do with politics or wars.
We don’t know when or how music was originally invented, but we can now track its evolution across space and time thanks to the Global Jukebox.
You want your baby's name to be unique, but so does everyone else.
The “scientific Buddha” and the idea of Buddhist exceptionalism with regard to science are modern creations.
How drugs, demons, and the search for immortality gave us words we use everyday.
Just as human beings diversified so that people in Asia look different from people in Europe, so too did their microbiomes.
Our inaugural special issue is focused on progress — the search for, the study of, and the project towards a better world.
An interview with filmmaker Jason Sussberg about his new film about Stewart Brand and the importance of culture in achieving progress.
Advances in ancient DNA analysis gave researchers a new way to trace the movements of peoples across Eurasia.
The Industrial Revolution changed music forever, thanks to a combination of technological advances and clever entrepreneurs.
Anything, good or bad, about Henry Ford can be contradicted — except his ambition and his work.
Time will tell what the reign of Charles III will look like, but one thing is for sure: the “new Elizabethan age” is long gone.
The Greeks were among the first to move beyond “primitive money” and establish an official currency, transforming their trade, government, and even philosophy.
Million Stories
When justice isn’t tempered by something such as mercy, forgiveness, or nonviolence, efforts to make society more equitable often backfire.
John Templeton Foundation
Horses pranced around the western hemisphere until they went extinct in the late Holocene. They were reintroduced by European colonists — though where, when, and how has remained unclear.
A second Enlightenment would have a far bigger task: Saving civilization itself.
Using data collected from ancient civilizations across the world, researchers identified the most significant factors in human development. War came out on top.
It is little more than a fancy excuse for escapist fantasizing.
Research shows that octopuses are sentient, emotional creatures.
Every timekeeping device works via a version of a pendulum — even the atomic clocks that are accurate to nanoseconds.
Moments of social anxiety around truth tend to be accompanied by similar “fool the eye” pop culture phenomena.
Many atheists think of themselves as intellectually gifted individuals, guiding humanity on the path of reason. Scientific data shows otherwise.
John Templeton Foundation
This representation of the Bamum kingdom is a rare example of early 20th-century indigenous African cartography.
Time for a status check before watching "Moon Knight."