Well-researched stories from around the web that bridge the gap between news and scholarship. Brought to you each Tuesday from the editors of JSTOR Daily.

Hurricanes and history (Here and Now/WBUR)
By Jeremy Hobson
How did the colonial histories of Puerto Rico and other parts of the Caribbean shape the way they can deal with disaster today?

The curse of knowing the future (Slate)
by Laura Spinney
If you had a 50/50 chance of getting a fatal disease, would you want to know which way your future would go? Over the past three decades, people in that position haven’t reacted the way scientists expected.

Why do you hate the food I love? (The New Yorker)
by Anne Fadiman
Why do some of us like wine, or spinach, or ice cream, while others feel exactly the opposite? Diversity in the number and placement of our taste buds can explain some serious family conflicts over food.

What if political campaigns don’t work? (The Atlantic)
by Emma Green
Candidates and other interested parties spend billions to try to convince voters to choose them. But a new paper suggests that none of it does any good.

A psychological cure for back pain? (Vox)
by Julia Belluz
Could back pain be all in a patient’s head? A doctor who made that argument has been widely derided by medical researchers. But now some evidence backs his ideas up.

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