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Exoskeletons, automaton pets and tiny toy humanoids (pictured) populate the Korea Institute of Robot and Convergence.

A Visit to Seoul Brings Our Writer Face-to-Face With the Future of Robots

In the world’s most futuristic city, a tech-obsessed novelist confronts the invasion of mesmerizing machines

The soil microbe Bacillus subtilis is ubiquitous, but one rare strain yielded scientific pay dirt.

One Girl’s Mishap Led to the Creation of the Antibiotic Bacitracin

Margaret Treacy was the namesake for a breakthrough medication

History of Now

Joe Pyne Was America’s First Shock Jock

Newly discovered tapes resurrect the angry ghost of Joe Pyne, the original outrageous talk show host

The world’s largest model world, the Unisphere was erected for the grand fair themed “peace through understanding.”

What the Unisphere Tells Us About America at the Dawn of the Space Age

A towering tribute to the future past—and one man’s ego

Howard in 1893 at Governor's Island

The Namesake of Howard University Spent Years Kicking Native Americans Off of Their Land

Oliver Otis Howard was a revered Civil War general—but his career had a dark postscript

A new app, developed by two college students, coaches you on your public speaking.

An App to Make You a Better Public Speaker

Orai, created by two college students, uses AI to help people become more fluent, confident speakers through consistent practice and feedback.

Taste receptors for salty, sweet, bitter and sour are found all over the tongue.

The Taste Map of the Tongue You Learned in School Is All Wrong

Modern biology shows that taste receptors aren’t nearly as simple as that cordoned-off model would lead you to believe

Thousands of clay caterpillars, like this one glued to a leaf in Hong Kong, were used to measure how often predators are eating insects around the world.

New Research

Sacrificing Fake Caterpillars in the Name of Science

Ersatz insects are helping ecologists figure out why bugs are more likely to become meals near the equator

Some of the cave dwellings in Old Khndzoresk.

Armenia

Explore an Ancient Cave City in Armenia

Residents lived in Old Khndzoresk up until the 1950s

Langston Hughes by Edward Henry Weston, 1932

Why Langston Hughes Still Reigns as a Poet for the Unchampioned

Fifty years after his death, Hughes’ extraordinary lyricism resonates with power to people

Amanda Lawrence, lead technician, collections program. With a green sea turtle Chelonia mydas

Why These Humans Are Museum Treasures, Too

A portrait photographer captured 24 staffers from the National Museum of Natural History posing with their favorite artifacts from the collections

John Frankenheimer's classic The Manchurian Candidate built upon the idea of brainwashed GIs in Korea.

History of Now

The True Story of Brainwashing and How It Shaped America

Fears of Communism during the Cold War spurred psychological research, pop culture hits, and unethical experiments in the CIA

Some studies have shown that humans can learn to track scents like canines.

New Research

In Some Ways, Your Sense of Smell Is Actually Better Than a Dog’s

Human noses are especially attuned to picking up odors in bananas, urine and human blood

A page from fifteenth century Armenian physician Amirdovlat Amasiatsi’s botanical encyclopedia, Useless for the Ignorant, housed in Matanadaran.

Armenia

Why a Modern Cosmetics Company Is Mining Armenia’s Ancient Manuscripts

Armenia’s folk remedies and botanical traditions are getting a new look

Draft of The Balfour Declaration with handwritten notes, 1917

World War I: 100 Years Later

How a Single Paragraph Paved the Way for a Jewish State

The Balfour Declaration changed the course of history with just one sentence

Torrance Coste of the Wilderness Committee illustrates the immensity of the missing Carmanah cedar in 2012.

Future of Conservation

How Thousand-Year-Old Trees Became the New Ivory

Ancient trees are disappearing from protected national forests around the world. A look inside $100 billion market for stolen wood

Austria

25 Marie Antoinette-Inspired Destinations

Destinations in Vienna, Paris and beyond for travelers interested in tracing the footsteps of the infamous French queen

A giraffe skin disease was first described in the mid-1990s in Uganda and evidence of the disease has been spotted in numerous other countries, including Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana.

Future of Conservation

How a Tiny Worm is Irritating the Most Majestic of Giraffes

They sound horrifying and look worse. A Smithsonian researcher is investigating the cause of these grotesque skin lesions

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