Southern Alps in New Zealand

How to Make It Rain

The United Arab Emirates is looking into building an artificial mountain in order to stimulate rain. Will it work?
Albert Einstein, 1921

Why No One Believed Einstein

Einstein's theory of relativity presented a direct challenge to the notion of ether.
Sleeping dog

Extreme Napping in the Animal Kingdom

Although sleep is ubiquitous for animals with brains, differences in how, why, and for how long animals sleep remain unexplained.
Yiddish Sex Manual

Risqué and Radical: Benzion Liber’s X-Rated Yiddish Sex Guide

In 1915, Dr. Benzion Liber published a book that described good sex, pregnancy, childbirth, masturbation, sex education, and venereal diseases…in Yiddish.
Airships and Flying Machines

The Natural Resources You Didn’t Know You Needed

Fossil fuels might get all the attention, but a recent discovery in Tanzania is a reminder of the other, less-heralded natural resources that we use.
Stanford VR coral world

Can Virtual Reality Emerge as a Tool for Conservation?

New advances in technology are sparking efforts to use virtual reality to help people gain a deeper appreciation of environmental challenges.
Cougar

Bringing Back the Cougars

A controversial proposed solution to the Eastern United States' deer population problem.
Agnes Chase

Women’s Fight for Scientific Fieldwork

How did women scientists fit into the naturalists and botanist mix during their earliest days in the field?
Enigma machine

Will Reading Romance Novels Make Artificial Intelligence More Human?

Google is feeding its natural language AI thousands of romance novels in an effort to humanize its “conversational tone.” Will this give it "humanness?"
Victorian woman reading

A Novel Defense of the Internet

Novel reading was once regarded as an idle occupation, just as Internet use is now.