The Strange Experiments of Henry Cavendish
Cavendish was an idiosyncratic scientist who conducted fascinating experiments, such as “weighing” the Earth and splitting water into its constituent elements.
Cloves: The Spice that Enriched Empires
Behind one humble spice lies a complex history of empires and profit, commodities and globalization.
The Seventeenth-Century Space Race (for the Soul)
The astronomical discoveries of the 1600s—such as Saturn’s rings—prompted new questions about the structure of the cosmos and humans’ place in it.
Crucial Building Blocks of Life on Earth Can More Easily Form in Outer Space
A special group of molecules, known as peptides, can form more easily under the conditions of space than those found on Earth.
How Astronomers Write History
Scientists’ approach to dating past eclipses changed when they stopped treating classical texts as authoritative records.
Bridging The Gap of War: Einstein’s Eclipse
Astronomer Arthur S. Eddington argued that astronomy should be above politics, even when politics leads to world war.
Reading “The Book of Nature”
Beginning in the Middle Ages, the natural world was viewed as a Christian parable, helping humans to give divine meaning to plants, animals, and the heavens.
Human Remains and Museums: A Reading List
Questions over their value for research conflict with the ethics of possessing the dead, especially when presenting human remains in the setting of a museum.
Explaining GRB 221009A, the Greatest Cosmic Explosion Humanity Has Ever Seen
The brightest gamma-ray burst ever observed, GRB 221009A behaved in unexpected ways that might help us understand how they occur.