A group of great tits (Parus major) on a branch

Angry Birds: Climate Change and Avian Migration

Temperature fluctuations throughout the years are affecting bird migration and mating, with sometimes violent results.
People walk on the Jialing River bed during a drought period on December 12, 2007 in Chongqing Municipality, China.

How Can Cities Keep Water Clean Now and in the Future?

As "megacities" grow in Africa and Asia, assuring residents long-term access to clean water may require a multidisciplinary approach.
A bust of Hesiod, a photograph of Joan Didion, the cover of Didion's book The White Album, and the first page of Hesiod's Work and Days

From Didion to Hesiod: The Center Will Not Hold

Hesiod's poem reminds us that in the end, we must all make sense of our works and days, with the help of—or in spite of—the stories in our heads.
Benito Mussolini meets an enthusiastic group of mothers and their babies in Turin, circa 1940.

Mussolini’s Motherhood Factories

In fascist Italy, childbirth, breastfeeding and motherhood were given a hybrid structure of industrial management and eugenicist biological essentialism.
Alexander Berkman speaks at Socialist meeting in Union Square, New York, on May Day, 1908

The NYC –> RUS Yiddish Socialist Pipeline

At the turn of the twentieth century, Yiddish became the language of political organizing for Russian Jews, thanks to the flow of literature from New York.
The evolution of a single line from David Walker’s Appeal

Comparing Editions of David Walker’s Abolitionist Appeal

Digitization allows researchers to trace editorial and authorial changes in archival content. Both are central to the study of this famous abolitionist pamphlet.
A duel between Charles de Lameth and the Marquis de Castries,November 12, 1790

A Slap, Followed by a Duel

Dueling was a dangerous, ritualized response to a real (or perceived) slight. It may also have been a means of proving one's social and economic capital.
Hyacinthus orientalis

Plant of the Month: Hyacinth

A 2021 shortage of hyacinth bulbs brings to mind the long and storied history of its botanical and economic import.
Women sewing fabric for seats at Pullman Works, Chicago, Illinois.

Pullman Women at Work: From Gilded Age to Atomic Age

Pullman resisted hiring women and did his best to keep attention away from the company’s female employees.
Customers hold out subsidy cards as they buy fresh bread on December 15, 2016 in Cairo, Egypt.

Urban Evolution, Daily Bread, and Nuclear War

Well-researched stories from Knowable Magazine, Wired and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.