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History and Society
Each time you fold a piece of paper, you double the paper's thickness. It doesn't take all that long to even reach the Moon.
Ketamine’s remarkable effect bolsters a new theory of mental illness.
They have held our fascination ever since we first identified their remains.
Napoleon Bonaparte was a man of many faces. European historian Michael Broers explains which are featured on the silver screen and why.
The cosmic scales governing the Universe are almost unbelievably large. What if we shrunk the Sun down to be just a grain of sand?
The U.S. ranked 59th worldwide.
Fantasy, meet statistics: The census comes to Middle-earth!
Sometimes called “the new gold,” sand is the second most exploited natural resource in the world after fresh water.
Like many of us, the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius hated waking up early, but his stoic philosophy always helped him get out of bed.
Today, the star-formation rate across the Universe is a mere trickle: just 3% of what it was at its peak. Here's what it was like back then.
Millions of people have had a near-death experience, and it often leads them to believe in an afterlife. Does this count as good proof?
As early as we've been able to identify them, the youngest galaxies seem to have large supermassive black holes. Here's how they were made.
A basement renovation project led to the archaeological discovery of a lifetime: the Derinkuyu Underground City, which housed 20,000 people.
For 550 million years, neutral atoms blocked the light made in stars from traveling freely through the Universe. Here's how it then changed.
A volley of new insights reignites the debate over whether our choices are ever truly our own.
The first stars in the Universe were made of pristine material: hydrogen and helium alone. Once they die, nothing escapes their pollution.
When battles raged in ancient cities, their rocks blazed so brightly that they could be reoriented according to Earth's magnetic field.
Along with obsidian that dazzled scientists in Canada.
How to say, "In many ways, Proust is similar to Joyce" and get away with it.
Omer Bartov, who spent decades studying the unspeakable horrors of genocide, shares how his studies have impacted his own mental health.
29mins
Four visionaries—Kevin Kelly, Peter Schwartz, Ari Wallach, and Tyler Cowen—share their insights on the future, urging viewers to consider the impact of their actions on future generations.
The first stars took tens or even hundreds of millions of years to form, and then died in the cosmic blink of an eye. Here's how.
These hard-to-finish books are still worth the effort.
Meet the people paid to rouse the workers of industrial Britain.
When you own your career, work becomes more than a means to an end — it becomes a vehicle for growth and happiness.
The Big Bang's hot glow faded away after only a few million years, leaving the Universe dark until the first stars formed. Oh, the changes!
Is it better to be the oldest sibling, the youngest, or in the middle?
The Universe is an amazing place. Under the incredible, infrared gaze of JWST, it's coming into focus better than ever before.
A sober look at a wild conspiracy theory that argues the Middle Ages never happened.