Quick Reads

Close-up of triple 7's on the face of a slot machine

Who Wins When Gambling is Legal?

Is expanding the role of legal gambling in the U.S. wise?

Nuremburg Trials Defendants in the Dock

Politics & History

Anniversary: The Nuremberg Trials

On November 20, 1945, in the wake of the Second World War, the Nuremberg War Crime Trials began. ...

Pressed chestnut leaves

Plants & Animals

When Chestnuts Ruled Our Forests

Once plentiful, chestnuts were virtually extirpated from the forests of eastern North America by WWII.

Tweezers holding a leaf and placing it in a test tube

Science & Technology

EPA Announces 2014 Presidential Green Chemistry Award Winners

The 2014 Presidential Green Chemistry Award winners discover new strategies for pollution prevention.

Older photograph of Florence Foster Jenkins standing agains a flowery backdrop while holding a fully feathered fan

Florence Foster Jenkins, World’s Worst Opera Diva

Florence Foster Jenkins, the legendary diva of awfulness, known as the world's worst opera singer.

The sun rising over the Earth's horizon

Science & Technology

Welcome to the Anthropocene

What is the anthropocene?

Human bones in sand partially uncovered

Education & Society

Humans and Neanderthals: History Revealed in an Ancient Femur

Recent findings narrow the period in which both Neanderthals and modern humans existed together.

FedEx trucks lined up in a parking lot

Before Amazon, There Was FedEx

How FedEx's data-driven approach paved the way for Amazon.

A maternity ward worker holds a baby in an empty hospital hall

Ready for the 11-Hour Work Day?

Will the 11-hour work day become a reality?

A tower of giraffes

Plants & Animals

The Secret Lives of Giraffes

Despite being such conspicuous animals, researchers still know surprisingly little about giraffes.

Editors' Picks

James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni in Conversation

In 1971, two legends of Black letters discussed Black manhood, white racism, the role of the writer, and the responsibility to teach.

Science & Technology

Can We Build a Better Facebook?

Is it time to turn our back on Facebook? And if so, what social network could possibly replace it?

Science & Technology

The Anatomists of Ancient Alexandria

Cultural forces under the Ptolemaic dynasty briefly allowed scholars like Herophilus to practice dissection—and possibly vivisection—on human subjects.

Politics & History

The Genocide Before the Shoah

For a century, Jews in Turkey have maintained a strategic silence when it comes to recognizing the Armenian genocide. Could that be changing?

Politics & History

Wilhelm Reich: Twice Burned

A psychoanalyst and physician, Reich fled the Nazis only to be detained by the US as an “enemy alien” during World War II. And then came the sexual revolution.