The Huge Social Worlds of Hunter-Gatherers (Aeon)
by Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias
For modern hunter-gatherer societies like the Mbendjele BaYaka, rejecting settled lifestyles is very much a choice. The reasons they make it shed light on the value of mobility for cultivating a large network of contacts.

The Asteroid Fighters (Nautilus)
by Tom Vanderbilt
For most of us, the remote threat of an asteroid hitting the Earth is the stuff of disaster movies, not something we really worry about. But small teams of observers around the world are preparing for the worst.

A Psychedelic Renaissance in China (Vox)
by Oshan Jarow
In the US, psychedelics are often seen as a tool for reclaiming spirituality that’s been lost in postindustrial modernity. In China, where the use of drugs like ayahuasca is growing, the stories people tell about their experiences are quite different.

Frank Oppenheimer and His Brother (Knowable Magazine)
by KC Cole
Nuclear physicist Frank Oppenheimer’s place in history is in the shadow of his brother Robert. But Frank’s path after the development of the atomic bomb suggests the possibility of a very different approach to the pursuit of peace.

Early Modern Sex Toys (Literary Hub)
by Annabelle Hirsch
The history of women’s sexuality has often been written by men. Records of the production of sex toys in seventeenth-century Europe suggest just how incomplete they often were.

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