History
95 articles-
What Is a Beautiful Experiment?
Finding beauty in science is timeless. But we shouldn’t let it blind us.
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Finding the Color of an Empire
What a particular shade of black can teach us about an ancient civilization.
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The 19th-Century Trippers Who Probed the Mind
In the age of self-experiment, scientists took mind-altering drugs to test the limits of subjectivity.
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The Ancient Architecture that Defies Earthquakes
Stone buildings in northern India reveal secrets of old structures that could save lives.
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The Strange Life of Glass
This essential substance has a history—and future—that’s far from clear.
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The Explosive Chemist Who Invented Smokeless Gunpowder
James Dewar, the creator of cordite, likely helped win World War I. But why never a Nobel?
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How Was Abortion Understood Historically?
One question for Claudia Ford, an herbalist and midwife turned environmental historian at SUNY.
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When the Surgeon Was an Uneducated Barber
A medical student confronts the history of surgery.
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Termination of Pregnancy Has Always Been Part of Women’s Health
Plants, prejudice, and history lessons for a post-Roe nation.
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A Lab of Her Own
In her bedroom during WWII, she discovered how the nervous system is wired.
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One of the Most Egregious Ripoffs in the History of Science
A new history of the race to decipher DNA reveals Shakespearean plots of scheming.
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The Disneyfication of Atomic Power
Inside America’s propaganda campaign, “Atoms for Peace,” launched in the wake of Hiroshima.
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The Botanist Who Defied Stalin
His dream of feeding the world died in prison. His dream of a seed bank lives on.
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Digging Deeper Into Holocaust History
What geoscientists are uncovering in Eastern Europe.
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Who Said Nobody Read Isaac Newton?
It’s a myth that legendary works in science aren’t read.
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What Did the Past Smell Like?
Get a whiff of a new sensory experience in history.
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When Science Was the Best Show in America
The first US museum was devoted to truth and reason. Then the circus came to town.
