Why You’ll Never Get Lead Poisoning from a Pencil
Some of the greatest moments in international pencil history involve discoveries of a different mineral.
Could Our Love of Clothing Promote Sustainable Fashion?
There are some clothes you hang on to, year after year, because they're durable and amazing.
Six Cat Poems That Aren’t That Owl and Pussycat One
There's nothing practical about these felines. Meow.
Tidal Power: A Forgotten Renewable Resource?
For well over a century, engineers have proposed harnessing the ocean's tides for energy. But the idea hasn't seemed to register in many places.
The Philosophy of Posthumous Art
For some creators, death isn’t the end of their career. How should we think about completing and releasing their work afterward?
Policing the Bodies of Women Athletes Is Nothing New
For women who play sports, there's often no way to win.
The Permanent Crisis of Infrastructure
Ever since it entered public consciousness in the 1980s, infrastructure has been synonymous with decline.
For James McCune Smith, Racism Was All Over Anthropology
What if the creation story of anthropology isn't exclusively about white men classifying people as primitive?
The Back-to-School Shopping Tradition in History
As more women went to college, department stores catered to them by setting up pop-up "college shops" every September.
Asthma Tropes and the Kids Who Hate Them
Children with asthma respond to the movie executives who see them as weak people helped by magical inhalers.