Businesspeople working and maintaining social distance on a sofa in a modern office

Here’s Why the CDC Recommends Indoor Masks for the Vaccinated

The CDC guidance applies to areas with high coronavirus transmission rates.
Damien Hooper of Australia listens to advice from his corner during the bout with Juan Carlos Carrillo of Colombia in the Boxing Men's Middle 75kg division on day 11 of the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympics at the International Convention Centre on August 25, 2010 in Singapore

How Do Indigenous Athletes Fit into the Olympics?

Olympic athletes are divided into teams of nations. To Indigenous competitors, though, that can mean representing oppressive settler-colonial states.
Blind men working on boxes for Elizabeth Arden cosmetics at the Lighthouse, an institution for the blind in New York

How Blind Activists Fought for Blind Workers

The National Federation of the Blind was the first major group of its kind to be led by visually impaired people.
Woman recycling glass, Wallingford neighborhood, Seattle, Washington, 1990

You’ll Never Believe Who Invented Curbside Recycling

Far from ushering in a zero-waste world, the switch from returnables to recycling provided cover for the creation of ever more packaging trash.
OK Soda can

Sells Like Teen Spirit

OK Soda disappeared from the store shelves of the 1990s shortly after its debut. But did its wink-wink marketing to Gen X actually work?
A father teaching his son at home

Why Some Black Parents Choose Homeschooling

Homeschooling has proved to be a valued alternative to the institutional racism often found in the classroom. But it offers something more, too.
Captain Misson, described by Captain Charles Johnson as the founder of a fictional "pirate utopia" called Libertalia or Libertatia.

Return to Pirate Island

The history of piracy illustrates a surprising connection to democratic Utopian radicalism—and, of course, stolen treasure.
Bob Moses at Mississippi Freedom Summer, 1964

How the Freedom Vote Mobilized Black Mississippians

When civil rights activists needed new tactics, they came up with a strategy that would get national and international attention.
A Mnemosyne mosaic from the second century AD

Healing and Memory in Ancient Greece

The goddess Mnemosyne helped bards remember what to sing and was the mother of the Muses. But she also played a role in healing sanctuaries.
Illustration: Coin slot

Source: Getty

Money’s Past, Antibiotic Trouble, and English Spelling

Well-researched stories from The New Yorker, Scientific American, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.