If you want to watch fireworks, go outdoors (Wired)
by Adam Rogers
If you skipped the bugs on the 4th of July and watched the fireworks on television, you missed out on something. Namely, the twenty-five percent of the human range of color vision that current televisions can’t capture.

The upside of bare feet (Scientific American)
by Karen Weintraub
If you spend a lot of time barefoot, you’ll build up calluses. But that doesn’t make your soles any less sensitive, and it may make it easier to do shoeless activities that could ultimately offer health benefits.

Why tenured professors should be more childish (The Harvard Gazette)
by Abraham “Avi” Loeb
How can serious scholars do better work? One Harvard astronomer suggests they should forget about awards and honors and instead enjoy the way the privilege of tenure lets them explore the world the way kids do.

Believing is seeing (Aeon)
by Daniel Yon
Our brains build up ideas about what’s around us based on sensory perception. But they can only do it effectively because our experiences have primed them for what to expect. This phenomenon can lead us to make mistakes, but without it we could have much bigger problems.

A fraught symbol of early America (Atlas Obscura)
by Adee Braun
After Yankee Doodle and before Uncle Sam, the United States had Brother Jonathan, a man of the people who stood up to the snobby Brits—and fought against full citizenship rights for Catholics and African-Americans.

Got a hot tip about a well-researched story that belongs on this list? Email us here.