Scientific American

Design can facilitate the worst of human instincts, including forcing animals into servitude and violence. Cricket cages tell stories about how people have treated the insects throughout time.

The astrolabe was a revolutionary tool for calculating celestial positions and local time. The device's design dates back to Islamic antiquity.

Paul Lussier on how to energize people, work with business, and develop solution-focused rhetoric and strategy before it’s too late.

A money belt with a zipper became an instant success among WWI U.S. sailors, whose uniforms did not have pockets. Almost all initial zipper sales were for the money belts.

The Spanish Influenza pandemic 100 years ago was the most lethal global disease outbreak since the Black Death. What were people thinking at the time?

Cities encourage potentially devastating floods by laying down asphalt and pavement. Could this be avoided by making them "spongier" and more absorbent?

The study of wingbeat has come an incredibly long way and could lead to breakthroughs crucial for human populations facing insect-borne disease and pests.

First Nations' seashell-derived wampum was Massachusetts' first legal currency, used as currency throughout northeastern America into the 19th century.

Brief commentary on one line from JSTOR: An unsigned editorial from an 1870s issue of Scientific American suggests that women can be great inventors, too.

In the first century B.C.E., a Roman ship sank near the Greek Island of Antikythera. In 1900 some off-course sponge divers discovered the wreckage.