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History and Society
Adrie Kusserow, an anthropologist and scholar of Buddhism, shares how her study of the religion and its history has reshaped her view of the world — and herself.
New DNA analyses raise questions over the theory that Christopher Columbus and his men brought syphilis to Europe.
Skilled hunters adapted to the changing landscape and left tantalizing clues to who they were.
No shots fired. No flags raised. And no dry land gained. Still, the U.S. effectively grew by the size of about two Californias in December.
9mins
From hunter-gatherers to the American Dream: This is how humanity’s definition of “work” has developed over time.
Valles Marineris is the Solar System's grandest canyon, many times longer, wider, and deeper than the Grand Canyon. What scarred Mars so?
Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is both completely normal and absolutely remarkable in a number of ways. Here's the story of our cosmic home.
Millennia ago, philosophers like Anaximander grasped that nature is the ultimate recycler.
On the largest cosmic scales, galaxies line up along filaments, with great clusters forming at their intersection. Here's how it took shape.
Uncovering the story of Milan Hausner, the Sadská clinic, and LSD psychotherapy behind the Iron Curtain.
Do the benefits of plastics outweigh the costs?
College students once stood out from the pack on IQ tests. Today, they're about average.
Here in our Solar System, we only have one star: a singlet. For many systems, including the highest-mass ones, that's anything but the norm.
There is a cross-country correlation between democracy and health. Is there good evidence to suggest it is causal?
The pattern 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc., is the Fibonacci sequence. It shows up all over nature. But what's the full explanation behind it?
London’s busiest airport seems to be rebounding well from the pandemic — but Istanbul has better prospects in the long run.
Placebo treatments don't always need to be given deceptively to have positive effects.
Life became a possibility in the Universe as soon as the raw ingredients were present. But living, inhabited worlds required a bit more.
Western societies seem to be getting inflammation achingly wrong.
Archaeologist Bernard Frischer spent decades uploading the ruins of the Eternal City to the cloud. Here’s what it looks like.
The most celebrated genius in human history didn't just revolutionize physics, but taught many valuable lessons about living a better life.
Our cosmic home, planet Earth, has been through a lot over the past 4.5 billion years. Here are some of its most spectacular changes
I also can’t conjure sounds, smells, or any other kind of sensory stimulation inside my head. This is called “aphantasia.”
One newly discovered, ancient star has a composition unlike any other. Explaining its existence is already blowing astronomers' minds.
From Hogwarts to hashtags, kids' reading habits have changed drastically in recent decades — but data suggests cause for hope.
Smaller family networks, more great-grandparents, and fewer cousins.
The midwest is particularly filled with them.
Parents will sometimes use children as weapons in their relationship battles — and the fallout can be devastating.
Environmental progress is happening quickly but we must keep pushing for change.
Finding it at all was a happy accident. Examining it further may help unlock the secrets hiding within the earliest galaxies of all.