What if one of our oldest ideas about ancestry is simply wrong? Harvard geneticist David Reich argues that ancient DNA has exposed the myth of purity and uncovered a far messier history of who we are and where we came from.

Have you ever woken up after a dream and thought to yourself, “That made absolutely no sense”? According to modern neuroscience, there’s a reason why dreams feel so abstract and bizarre. Two sleep experts discuss.

The ideology, economics, and psychology behind the modern world's draining of color from homes, cars, and everyday objects.

Historian Eric Cline argues the Bronze Age collapse wasn't the work of one invading force or one bad harvest, but something far harder to stop: An overly interdependent system that had no way to absorb multiple shocks at once.

Speculative evolution explores the strange paths natural selection might have taken — and what that means for humans.

"It's this modern idea of doing voluntary discretionary, physical activity for the sake of health and fitness."

Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.

Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.

In this excerpt from The Breath of the Gods, Simon Winchester explores how the Sumerians first named the wind and shaped our early understanding of the natural world.

Digital tools are pulling us away from fixed texts and back toward fluid, interactive communication.

Andrew Markell — philosopher, martial artist, and CEO advisor — argues that true endurance comes from desire, ritual, and learning to evolve through chaos.

Getting drunk might be bad for you but good for us.

Language is a huge part of human development, even the language we keep to ourselves. Three experts explain how words and beliefs can change our brains and our lives:

Sleeping better helps you think better, which helps you live better. Three experts explain why quality sleep is imperative to brain function, problem solving, communication, and more.

How can the brain — a piece of matter — love? Physics and chemistry explain the material world, but they can’t explain why it feels like something to be alive. This is the mystery of consciousness, according to these experts.

A conversation with Dr. Susan Schneider on the AI risks we’re not talking about and why the fixation on AGI is misplaced.

“A lot of the trends in the economy, in family life have just been much harder for working class men.”

The ocean is evolving, and it’s not based on the ‘survival of the fittest.’ Astrobiologist Betül Kaçar explains how it’s not competition that has kept the ocean alive, but collaboration.

This is my country and this is what we stand for. At least for now.

Welcome to The Nightcrawler — a weekly newsletter from Eric Markowitz covering tech, innovation, and long-term thinking.

English could settle into a state of "diglossia" where a gulf exists between the written form and its spoken varieties, but the two are bound into a single tongue.

Are we enslaved by the finer things in life?

Hugo-winning author Ken Liu explores what early cinema and Chinese poetry can teach us about AI's potential as a new artistic medium.

In his book, "Birds, Sex and Beauty," Matt Ridley explores why learning isn't always nature versus nurture.

While death-bed utterances are more famous, baby’s first words have influenced us too.

Do we really need to be religious to run a society well?

What if the barrier to a fulfilled life isn’t technology but culture?

"I think we need a truly open-ended conversation with 8 billion strangers, and what makes that hard to do increasingly is a level of political fragmentation and extremism and partisanship born of our engagement with these new technologies."

From tribal hunts to Stonehenge and into the modern day, the peer instinct helps humans coordinate their efforts and learning.

The controversial theory about magic mushrooms and human evolution gets a much-needed update.