Archaeologist Eric Cline has spent his career forensically reconstructing why the Bronze Age collapsed, and the answer is far stranger and more unsettling than a single catastrophic event.

Historian Eric Cline illuminates the 400-year period following ancient collapse that shaped the modern world.

NASA astronomer Michelle Thaller makes the case that quantum entanglement may be the underlying fabric from which spacetime itself emerges. 

Americans believe they can outthink suffering. Historian Kate Bowler explains how our obsession with self-help, optimization, and positivity became a kind of secular religion.

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.

Sam Kean examines how rogue archaeologists are recreating the sounds, tastes, smells, and practices of the ancient past.

Toxic positivity isn’t optimism. It’s denial. Historian Kate Bowler explains why our obsession with “good vibes only” is making it harder to cope.

Alain de Botton argues that our romantic lives are shaped more by the emotional patterns we learned in childhood than by destiny.

At COP30, Indigenous leaders came with a message the world can’t ignore: 5% of the global population is safeguarding 80% of Earth’s biodiversity. A $1.8B pledge was made to support their land rights — but will the money follow their lead?

Chris Miller explains the hidden reason that global superpowers are obsessed with Taiwan.

Happiness collapses the moment hardship arrives. Joy doesn’t. Historian Kate Bowler explains why joy can coexist with pain — and why that makes it a stronger, more fulfilling emotion.

"Rationalism is the idea that, in order to truly know something, you have to be able to describe it explicitly."

"The thing that the nihilist recognizes is that the values he or she holds are not grounded in anything other than their own preferences."

"The process of systematizing, correcting errors, finding approximations, and making them work as civil systems that was what really drove me to start looking at human calculation and what was the foundation that it laid for the modern computer age."

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

Stoicism has been flattened into slogans about toughness, detachment, and emotional silence, a version that’s easy to sell, but mostly wrong.  Massimo Pigliucci returns Stoicism to its original purpose: a […]

"Being connected to another person makes us feel safer and keeps our bodies at a kind of physiologic equilibrium that promotes health."

“How can all the diversity and, sort of, seeming order that's out there in the world emerge from a process dependent upon chance?”

David S. Goyer explains how paying attention to mystery, and not brushing it aside, became the foundation for the way he builds stories, characters, and worlds.

“The problem is in our information. Humans, yes, we are generally good and wise, but if you give good people bad information, they make bad decisions.”

Having explored the Mariana Trench, the summit of Everest, and the edge of space, Victor Vescovo knows what awe feels like in its most dramatic forms. What surprised him most was how often that same feeling appears in everyday life.

Our brains weren’t built for the amount of info we deal with now. That’s why scientists have made the case for a “second brain” — a place to dump ideas so you can actually see how they connect later.

“Old systems of the past are collapsing, and new systems of the future are still to be born. I call this moment the great progression.”

“Why would adding shame and blame help me improve my behavior?”

From science to philosophy, three perspectives explore why humans can’t stop asking “why.” Our search for purpose, they suggest, is less about finding answers and more about learning how to move forward.

“Progress happens when we choose to make it happen. It happens through choice and effort. And ultimately, to make progress happen, we have to believe in it.”

“People got skeptical, fearful, doubtful of the very idea of progress in the 20th century and we allowed that to slow down progress itself.”

“There are at least three very much interrelated misconceptions about trauma right now.”

“Chance invents and natural selection propagates that chance invention.”

“When you start to accept that you have profound influence on the world, but very limited control, you start to see the world differently.”