What’s in a (Planet) Name?
January 1, 2020 will be the first anniversary of the spacecraft New Horizon’s visit to Arrokoth, a minor planet 4 billion miles away from ours—the farthest object ever visited by...
We’re Living in a Post-Antibiotic World
On November 13, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a 148-page report on antibiotic resistance in the U.S., and the threat it poses to us. It presents...
Smart Toilets: The Jetpack of the Bathroom
On first read, “smart toilet” may sound oxymoronic, but with the advent of receptacles that can play music, warm their seats, double as bidets, and even adjust themselves for elderly...
Sundials, Sentiments, and S-Town
S-Town, the record-breaking podcast released on March 28th to a wave of critical acclaim and (some concern), was envisioned by its creators to be a podcast as novel. Host &...
Rory Gilmore: The New New Woman
Recently, Netflix brought us the Gilmore Girls revival–Rory, Lorelei, and Emily 10 years on, able to “end” the show as its creator intended. The return prompted multiple articles about whether...
The Rise and Fall of Pay Toilets
Ever wondered who first invented the pay toilet? The institution may just go back longer than you’d suspect. The Ancient Romans were not the first to have sophisticated sewers and...
Our Long Roanoke Nightmare
The sixth season of Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story premiered on September 14th after a lengthy campaign of intentional obfuscation, including 24 trailers that may or may not have had...
Does Science Destroy Wonder?
In his new book, The Kingdom of Speech, Tom Wolfe challenges the idea that language is a product of evolution, claiming it must have come through some other mechanism—namely, mnemonics....
“Stranger Things” and the Psychic Nosebleed
In the Netflix series Stranger Things, which has widely been declared the show of the summer, the tropes of 1980s popular culture are returned to us–some lovingly untouched, some turned...