The Tangled History of Weaving with Spider Silk
Spider silk is as strong as steel and as light as a feather, but attempts to industrialize its production have gotten stuck, so to speak.
Finding a Murderer in a Victim’s Eye
In late 19th-century forensics, optography was all the rage. This pseudoscience held that what someone saw just before death would be imprinted on their eye.
When Clairvoyants Searched for a Lost Expedition
When Captain Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition went awry, clairvoyants claimed to be able to contact the crew members. Why did people believe them?
When Artists Painted with Real Mummies
The popular paint pigment called “mummy brown” used to be made from—yep—ground-up Egyptian mummies.
Is the 30-Year-Long Styrofoam War Nearing Its End?
Neither banning nor recycling will rid us of Styrofoam. Can we live without it?
Porklife: Building a Better Pig
Can we reconcile our growing appetite for meat with our desire to treat factory animals better?
Sociophysics and Econophysics, the Future of Social Science?
Can empirical data about human behavior make the “soft” sciences more like the “hard” ones? New interdisciplinary fields are voting yes.
Ectoplasm and the Last British Woman Tried for Witchcraft
Spiritualist medium Helen Duncan was photographed emitting ectoplasm, supposedly proof of her ability to contact the dead.
Some Books Can Kill
Poisonous green pigments laced with arsenic were once a common ingredient in book bindings, paints, wallpapers, and fabrics. Yikes.
