A man standing before a large ant hill

I Spent Three Hours Staring at an Anthill

And all I got were these fascinating observations of parasitic ants that kidnap other ants.
Drain pipes flowing into a bay

Antibiotics Are Getting into Everything

How does a wild dolphin end up resistant to antibiotics?
Hagar in the Wilderness by Camille Corot, 1835

Following Haajar’s Footsteps to a Feminist Reading of Islam

A personal experience with the Hajj brought to life the iconic figure of Haajar, whose tenacity and stoicism highlight the importance of women in Islam.
Tom Cruise is sprayed with water during an interview

The Offensive Joke Trap

The audience for a joke has options. They can “support” a joke—for example by laughing at it—or they can respond with “unlaughter."
Alfred Jacob Miller - Roasting The Hump Rib

The Origins of the Word “Barbecue”

The skinny on the Q.
The Dance of Death

A Roman Feast… of Death!

The banquet hall was painted black from ceiling to floor. By the pale flicker of grave lamps, the invited senators coud make out a row of tombstones.
Succession

The Allure of the Millionaire Family Drama

The reason we put aside our personal dislike of rich TV families, people we might deeply resent if they were real, is two-fold.
A network server

How Much Carbon Will It Cost to Read This Story?

Just how significant is the internet’s carbon footprint?
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Why MLK Believed Jazz Was the Perfect Soundtrack for Civil Rights

Jazz, King declared, was the ability to take the “hardest realities of life and put them into music, only to come out with some new hope or sense of triumph.”
A collection of Native American utensils and weapons

What We Lose When We Lose Indigenous Knowledge

By mistaking a culture’s history for fantasy, or by disrespecting the wealth of Indigenous knowledge, we're keeping up a Columbian, colonial tradition.