A Curious Reader asks: When and how did the handshake originate?

James Turrell is building an observatory that uses the human eye instead of optical instruments. It may soon be open to the public for the first time.

After triumphantly leading the Lewis and Clark expedition, Meriwether Lewis was either murdered or committed suicide. Did syphilis play a role?

The post-9/11 expansion of federal powers over transportation security was also an extension of power over the security workforce.

Renaissance-era anatomists taught people to “knowe thyself” by reading the books of bodies.

We shouldn't see changes in Americans’ sex lives as a single phenomenon with an overarching cause.

Sure, it sounds like science fiction. But some researchers suggest that warp drives might actually be a possibility.

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

Sigmund Freud told Carl Jung it was important to keep sexuality at the center of the human psyche, rather than anything spiritualist.

A group of skilled women ran the silk-making industry in 15th century London. So why didn't they protect their workers' rights by forming a guild?