Venezuela Tepui Highlands

Venezuela’s Mysterious Tepuis

Many species on the tepui summits are found nowhere else. How did those species get there?
Antebellum sex education

Who Gets To Speak Publicly About Sex?

Frederick Hollick's case involved not only his controversial sex-positive arguments, but also the question of who should be privy to medical knowledge about sex.
Kent State

What the Kent State Killings Did to the Student Protest Era

In retrospect, the violent events at Kent State on May 4, 1970 marked the ending of widespread campus protest left over from the turbulent 1960s.
Japanese elderly prison

When the Elderly Poor Are Left Behind

In Japan, elderly people are committing crimes just so they can go to jail and feel cared for. A similar situation has played out in India, where the elderly have been left out of traditional social support networks.
Frida Khalo painting

Did Frida Kahlo Suffer From Fibromyalgia?

Studying the artist's paintings may reveal more about the her early trauma and subsequent pain than suspected.
Old West Crossdressing

The Forgotten Gender Nonconformists of the Old West

In the Old West, cross-dressing was sometimes a disguise for criminals on the lam. But, one historian argues, in many cases these “cross-dressers” were probably people who we would identify as transgender today.
Illustration: a flower and leaf of the Franklinia alatamaha by William Bartram (1782)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklinia#/media/File:William_Bartram01.jpg

America’s Mysterious Lost Tree

Extinct in the wild, the Franklinia tree is still cultivated in botanical gardens, private homes, parks, even cemeteries. It's also got an interesting Revolutionary-era backstory.
optimistic kids

Children Are Natural Optimists (Which Has Its Ups and Downs)

Human beings seem to be born wearing rose-colored glasses. Psychologists are interested in how this bias toward the positive works in the very young.
Hotel Clerk

Why Americans Used to Hate Hotel Workers

In 1874, popular writer Henry Hooper called the hotel clerk “the supercilious embodiment of Philistinism.” What accounts for the nineteenth century hate?
Reconstruction Richmond

Revisiting Reconstruction

Reconstruction is one of the least-known periods of American history, and much of what people think they know about it may be wrong.