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History and Society
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.
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.
In pre-War Cambridge, students had to ace an interview with Ludwig Wittgenstein to attend his lectures — Alan Turing passed that test, and went on to create one of his own.
A controversial new philosophy paper tries to bring our moral prejudices to heel. Should it?
Misinformation was extremely popular in 2023, as bad science often made global headlines. Learn the truth behind these 10 dubious stories.
The problem with today’s AI isn’t it thinking for itself; it’s the tech telling humans whatever we want to hear.
With great power comes retcon responsibility.
The Parthenon embodies the ideals of perfection Classical Greeks sought from architecture. The neighboring Erechtheion offers something else.
Atomic nuclei form in minutes. Atoms form in hundreds of thousands of years. But the "dark ages" rule thereafter, until stars finally form.
Astronomers have discovered more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets — very few of which resemble Earth.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, matter can escape the center of the Earth.
From "The Castle of Otranto" to "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, these books changed the literary landscape.
On December 9, 2023, Halley's Comet reached aphelion: its farthest point from the Sun. As it returns, here are 10 facts you should know.
Even before birth, our brains are taking note of the languages we hear.
Looking back on our planet's early history offers a new (and less crazy) meaning for the idea of a "flat Earth."
From Æthelred the Unready to Halfdan the Bad Entertainer, these strange epithets colored the legacy of four rather unlucky historical figures.
For generations, physicists have been searching for a quantum theory of gravity. But what if gravity isn't actually quantum at all?
Without even realizing it, we’ve actually become pretty god-like in our powers.
The first elements in the Universe formed just minutes after the Big Bang, but it took hundreds of thousands of years before atoms formed.