The First Green Money: Nature-Printed Currency
Benjamin Franklin used naturalist Joseph Breintnall’s botanic prints of leaves on his paper currency to foil counterfeiters.
Are Millionaire Taxes Self-Defeating?
A common argument against increasing taxes on high earners is that the wealthy will simply move out of the city or state with higher taxes.
State Politics and Public Lands Management
Judging by past executive orders, the US president’s newest policies on public lands may turn federal responsibilities over to state or local governments.
Tiny Splendid Peacock Spiders
They have the fastest known jump among their kind according to a new study.
Twin Curtains: Oz and the USSR
Aleksandr Volkov’s The Wizard of the Emerald City reimagined L. Frank Baum’s classic, imbuing the story with a love of labor for readers in the Eastern bloc.
The Numinous World of Pliny the Elder
As a follower of Stoic philosophy, Pliny used sensory experience to try to understand the divine.
Roti, Airborne Life, and Rethinking Disability
Well-researched stories from Public Books, Quanta Magazine, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Cheesy Terroir-ism: The ABCs of AOCs
Whether it supports the production of wine or cheese, terroir is a “particularly French conception of cultural territory” says historian Tamara L. Whited.
The High Cost of Sand in Southeast Asia
The clean, green garden city of Singapore has been built on sand extracted—at significant environmental cost—from its neighbors.
A History of Fire
It’s only as we brought fire under better control that we stopped thinking so much about it—and, with climate change, that may be shifting again.