Portrait young couple at voter polling place

The Case for Lowering the Voting Age

If the standard we hold for who can vote is the consent of the governed, why shouldn’t children be included?
office email anthropology

The Anthropology of the Office Email

Researchers learn a lot from studying office workers' email. But the question remains: do they learn more about the people, or about the medium itself?
The U.S. Capitol Building at night

Has the Internet Weakened Our Political Institutions?

According to our columnist, the internet has destabilized many of the informal institutions that underpin our democracy.
Vintage engraving from 1876 of a old victorian haunted house.

How Victorian Mansions Became the Default Haunted House

Quick: Picture a haunted house. It's probably a Victorian mansion, right? Here's how these structures became signifiers of horror, haunting, and death.
A cute female jaguar cub walking in the hay and looking at the camera

Angry Women, Captive Jaguars, and Brainy Catholics

Well-researched stories from the New Yorker, Pacific Standard Magazine, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
mummy brown painting

When Artists Painted with Real Mummies

The popular paint pigment called “mummy brown” used to be made from—yep—ground-up Egyptian mummies.
Boake Carter

Before Rush Limbaugh, There Was Boake Carter

When Boake Carter opened his mouth, he whipped up tempers and tempests. But who was he?
scary diseases

Epidemics as Entertainment

Plagues capture the public imagination in ways that other less terrifying--but more deadly--diseases don't.
conodonts

The Most Abundant Creature You’ve Never Heard Of

Conodonts are actually older than the oldest previously known vertebrates, making them the earliest known “skeletonized” vertebrates in existence.
krazy kat comic

Krazy Kat’s Complex Relationship with Race

Behind the slapstick antics in this beloved comic strip simmered ambivalence about color and race.