The Tweety Bird Test
How a classic Tweety Bird cartoon became a mainstay in linguistics research.
Che Guevara
In 1964, 5 years after the end of the Cuban revolution, Che Guevara wrote for an academic journal. Read the Cuban leader in his own words.
What Desert Cities Can Teach Us about Water
Pushed by necessity, the country’s least sustainable region evolved to master its water use. As climate heats up, other cities may adopt similar tactics.
An African Queen, Alien Signals, and Poison Eating
Well-researched stories from Longreads, The Atlantic, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Ada Lovelace, Pioneer
Ada Lovelace wrote extensive notes on the world’s first computer. Her innovations foreshadowed those used in twentieth-century PCs.
The Ethics of Research on Captive Dolphins
Researchers say that dolphins are so smart that captivity causes them psychological harm. But getting data in the open ocean can be tricky.
Why Did Nixon Burn the China Hands?
Nixon targeted Foreign Service officers who served in China in the 1940s as communist sympathizers and "fellow travelers." Then he opened trade relations.
Wild Rice’s Refusal to Be Domesticated
The reality of wild rice defeated the best efforts of Europeans to domesticate it.
The Patron Saint of Bookstores
100 years ago, Sylvia Beach, the first publisher of James Joyce’s Ulysses, opened the doors to her legendary bookstore, Shakespeare & Co.
Why the Dakota Only Traded among People with Kinship Bonds
“Trapping was not a ‘business for profit’ among the Dakota but primarily a social exchange,” one scholar writes.