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History and Society
Most cities reeked of death, defecation, and industrial waste. Still, focusing only on stench means turning a blind eye (or nose) to the many other smells that helped shape human history.
Social media distorts the reality of the public sphere.
An optical telescope with a massive 20-foot (6-meter) mirror has an eye-popping price tag of $11 billion.
There have been some 6,000 Great Lakes shipwrecks, which have claimed an estimated 30,000 lives. These maps show some of them.
To Vladimir Putin, a young KGB colonel at the time, the decision was a colossal mistake.
Scientists have known blobs existed for a long time, but how they have behaved over Earth’s history has been an open question.
Many people perceive the struggle to understand our Universe as a battle between science and God. But this is a false dichotomy.
Chess was once blamed for triggering mental health problems, including suicide and even murder. Today, the same is said of video games.
The results of a 2021 study suggest that the world's most powerful psychedelic may be an underutilized peace-building tool.
The idea of "absolute time" was our default for millennia. But time is relative, as gravity and motion both cause time to dilate.
Scientists across a range of disciplines have helped solve Darwin's dilemma.
The story of how Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were made isn't a universal one. Some gas giants were built different.
From Brahms to Tchaikovsky, here's a curated list of composers whose music has shaped the classical canon.
It's possible to measure philosophy's progress in two ways. But is that really the point?
While there is more to North Korean cinema than meets the eye, the country’s film industry ultimately amounts to little more than a mouthpiece for the ruling Kim dynasty.
On Nov. 13, 1946, a scientist dropped crushed dry ice from a plane into supercooled stratus clouds.
Mutations that confer malaria resistance occur more frequently in people who live in regions where the disease is endemic.
To study the origin of the Universe, we could build a constellation of six expensive spacecraft — or we could just use the Moon.
For some reason, when we talk about the age of stars, galaxies, and the Universe, we use "years" to measure time. Can we do better?
The relationship between these two ways of thinking about the world deserves deeper exploration.
The attitude we take to Will Smith's slap will mirror our attitudes to violence, masculinity, and protecting others more generally.
From the tablets of the Babylonians to the telescopes of modern science, humans have always looked to the skies for fundamental answers.
By toppling medieval Europe’s mightiest political power, the Protestant Reformation ushered in a new age of freedom, religious and otherwise.
“How can we live without our lives? How will we know it’s us without our past?” Steinbeck writes.
Javelin missiles have been an effective force multiplier, the latter-day equivalent of the sling that David used against Goliath.
Galactic archaeology has uncovered a spectacular find: the Milky Way already existed more than 13 billion years ago.
More than 200 years ago, scientists tried to figure out how bats navigate in the dark (or without eyes). This set in motion a series of events that led to the development of ultrasound as a form of psychotherapy.
Multiple lines of evidence — physical, chemical, and biological — must converge for scientists to conclude that alien life has been found.
Urinating in the direction of NATO’s staunchest opponent could cost you $350 or more. For world peace, aim wisely.
To answer any physical question, you must ask the Universe itself. But what happens when the answers aren't around anymore?