Our Best Stories of 2019
Tweety bird linguistics, tiny purses, Beowulf's monsters, and the evolution of beauty.
How 19th Century Scientists Predicted Global Warming
Today’s headlines make climate change seem like a recent discovery. But Eunice Newton Foote and others have been piecing it together for centuries.
How to Use Zotero and Scrivener for Research-Driven Writing
This month, I’m doing something a little different with my column: I’m sharing the system I use to write it, so that you can use or adapt my system.
Carolina Words, Brexit Time, and Weird Ancient Art
Well-researched stories from NPR, Washington Post, and other publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
When Product Placement Goes Wrong
It was a lesson brands could have used in the early 2000s.
Pirating Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, in the 1840s
When Parley's Illuminated Library published a pirated version of A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens decided he had had enough.
Who Survives a Political Scandal?
For a public figure, a scandal is a predictable hazard of the trade. What's less predictable, however, is who survives one.
There’s No Template for Emotional Intelligence
A templated response to any situation is the antithesis of an emotionally in-tune reaction.
Who Was Alexander von Humboldt?
Remembering the work of the great naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, on the 250th anniversary of his birth.
Who Was Elsie, besides the World’s Most Famous Cow?
In the Great Depression, Borden sought a new spokescow to help preserve its traditional agrarian image.