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History & Society
Trace how culture, power, and ideas shape societies across time.
What would your company do if it lost all its customers at once?
The modern playground was more than a place to play — it was a blueprint for a new kind of upbringing.
Humans are naturally creative, but adulthood often teaches us to value productivity over play.
From early arcades to AI-generated worlds, video games have continually expanded the “magic circle” of play.
3mins
Older cultures made room for mourning. Today, we often rush it, and it comes with a cost. Three experts explain.
Unlikely Collaborators
Vague predictions and post hoc revisions help astrology feel meaningful, even while it fails empirical testing.
Why we shouldn't necessarily outsource our thinking to dead people.
Astronomers study our cosmic history through stellar and galactic archaeology. But we can't conduct archaeology in space. At least, not yet.
What the near-death experiences of daffodils can teach us about resilience, death, and becoming someone new.
A look at what could be if we ignore the doomers and make the most of AI.
Historian Jess Venner discusses how “critical fabulation” can help reveal the lived experiences of Pompeii’s voiceless residents.
Contrary to common experience, not everything needs a medium to travel through. Overcoming that assumption removes the need for an aether.
Gaeilge is trending culturally. So why is it, according to census data, also dying?
Long before today's debates, immigration was already transforming the American accent into something distinctively its own.
In 2006, Pluto was controversially demoted to "dwarf planet" by the IAU. Unless you ignore most of astrophysics, it won't ever be one again.
These initially sympathetic characters take readers down a dark path.
NASA has just sent astronauts back to the Moon for the first time since 1972 with Artemis II. So why would we cut NASA and NSF science now?
From landscaped gardens to road systems, the Persians were among the first to create many things we still enjoy today.
A growing movement is trying to turn energy directly into food — reviving an old dream of escaping the violence and inefficiency of eating.
The famous framework ranks civilizations by energy use — but ignores a critical factor that can halt their progress.