A hand holding a trading card featuring Ruby Dee

How Trading Card Collectors Have Fought Stereotypes

By making what may have been unseen visible, trading cards have often provided an opening into larger conversations on race, gender, and representation.
Orange Buddish Monks Robe tied around a tree.

Why Some Buddhist Monks Ordain Trees

Buddhist monks in Thailand began tying trees with their traditional colored robes in the 1980s, as threats to ecology increased.
Raven Ziegler from Minneapolis protests the name of the Washington Redskins before a game on November 7, 2013

Playing Sports and “Playing Indian”

The use of Native American stereotypes for team mascots and nicknames is related to efforts to erase Indian identity and culture.
An illustration of a Culiseta melanura mosquito.

A Deadly Virus is Lurking in East Coast Mosquitoes

Eastern Equine Encephalitis may be brewing in the bog near you. Should you worry?
cute brown rat in the grass

Helpful Rats, Terrifying Chickens, and Risky Thinking

Well-researched stories from NPR, The Walrus, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Marie Lafarge, c. 1850

The Arsenic Cake of Madame Lafarge

The first trial to use forensic toxicology electrified France in 1840 with the tale of a bad marriage and poisoned innards.
Miss Navajo Nation Shaandiin P. Parrish grabs a box filled with food and other supplies to distribute to Navajo families on May 27, 2020 in Counselor on the Navajo Nation Reservation, New Mexico.

How Influenza Devastated the Navajo Community in 1918

Like COVID-19, the 1918 influenza pandemic moved swiftly through the Navajo community, but firsthand accounts of the devastation are rare.
A view of Salt Lake City, Utah from the August 1866 issue of Harper’s Weekly, accompanied by portraits of sixteen important early leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Mormon Fans of Europe’s 1848 Revolutions

As the crowned heads of Europe shuddered at the unrest in the streets, members of the Latter-Day Saints movement cheered.
Supper at Delmonico's, New York 1898

The First American Restaurants’ Culinary Concoctions

A study of historical fine-dining menus yields surprises. Like six preparations of frog, and delicious lamb testicles.
David Ruggles

The First Black-Owned Bookstore and the Fight for Freedom

Black abolitionist David Ruggles opened the first Black-owned bookstore in 1834, pointing the way to freedom—in more ways than one.