In a recent New Yorker cartoon, a hotel clerk facing two patrons says, “If there’s anything we can do to make your stay more pleasant, just rant about it all over the Internet.”…

Even in the 1990s, the procedure seemed primitive. Laura Niklason watched it repeatedly as a medical resident at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital. When patients undergoing…

A crowd of thousands had gathered at St. Mark’s Square in Venice, drawn by the prospect of witnessing a telecommunications revolution. In the warm summer evening of June 24, 2011…

Several years ago, a group of American cockroaches discovered four strangers in their midst. A brief investigation revealed that the interlopers smelled like cockroaches, and so…

When Ernest Sternglass walked up the steps at 112 Mercer Street in April 1947, he knew it would not be a normal day. Like a church deacon summoned to meet the Pope, Sternglass—a…

If America’s nuclear waste could be turned into electricity, it could power the country for the next century. More than 77,000 tons of plutonium, americium, and other radioactive…

Our humble toilet has shaped civilization. Starting in 19th-century Britain, it spread throughout the industrialized world, eliminated recurring cholera epidemics, and contributed…

This month, in our article, “Literature by the Numbers,” we introduced you to scholars using digital tools to uncover fresh historical and critical insights into fiction, poetry,…

Thomas’ parents had not been sure, since his brain injury, if he recognized them or even sensed their presence. Lying in a hospital bed he looked like a typical 12-year-old boy.…

In November of last year, Jan Scheuermann did something she never thought she would do again: She fed herself a piece of chocolate. For the last decade Scheuermann, 54, has been a…