A snake opens its mouth wide and bares its fangs

Help is on the Way for Snakebite Victims

Researchers have developed a way to identify the species of snake through a DNA swab of the bite, without killing it.
Russel Brand

PSY-Q: Are the Drug Laws Working? Russell Brand Doesn’t Think So

All currently-illegal drugs, including cannabis, are harmful to health, the main argument for legalizing them reduces harm, by minimizing their consumption.
A Cliff Swallow with sand in its mouth

Driving the Evolution of Cliff Swallows

Charles R. Brown and Mary Bomberger Brown have been studying cliff swallows (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota) in southwestern Nebraska since the early 1980s.
A leader speaks into a megaphone to a crowd.

When Unions Fought for the Environment

In a 1998 paper in Environmental History, Scott Dewey argues that unions were a key force for the emerging cause of environmentalism in the 1950s and '60s.
Bones of a mammoth on display

If You Cloned a Mammoth…

Can a mammoth be cloned?
Paperback copies J.R.R. Tolkien's classics: The Hobbit; The Fellowship of the Ring; The Two Towers; and The Return of the King

J. R. R. Tolkien the Philologist

Before The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien was a philologist, a specialist in historical texts.
Scene of a parade from the 2014 movie Annie.

Our Obsession with Orphans: A Short History from Jane Eyre to Annie

Little Orphan Annie is the latest in a sequence of pop culture foundlings, but America’s orphans of the Great Depression weren’t endearing at all.
Ludwig van Beethoven Painting by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1819 or 1820

Happy Birthday, Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770 in Bonn, Germany.
Vultures on tree

How The Near Extinction of Indian Vultures Led to Disaster

The populations of the nine species of Indian vultures began to plummet in the 1990s
British flag

The Anglo-American Relationship: Not Always So Special

The "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom followed a very long century of special enmity.