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Articles

Shark Week

Sharks and Humans: A Love-Hate Story

A short history of our relationship with the ocean’s most intimidating fish

Why People Abandon High-Tech Prosthetics

That Luke Skywalker prosthetic arm may strike the average user as less than sensational

Sperm whales, giant squid and humans all have a mitochondrial "Eve."

No, a Mitochondrial ‘Eve’ Is Not the First Female in a Species

The latest story about a sperm whale “Eve” shows how people misunderstand the evolutionary term. Fear not: We can clarify

Jayson Mesman and his truffle hunting dog Samson hard at work at The Truffle Farm.

These Adorable Rescue Dogs Lead Truffle Hunting Tours in Australia’s Majura Valley

An Australian farmer trains these abandoned canines to sleuth out a gourmet delicacy

France has some 280 burial grounds for men killed in Somme combat, including the Lonsdale Cemetery in Authuille.

World War I: 100 Years Later

A Bold New History of the Battle of the Somme

British generals have long been seen as the bunglers of the deadly conflict, but a revisionist look argues that a U.S. general was the real donkey

Edna O’Brien pictured in late 2013

Novelist Edna O’Brien Explores the True Nature of Evil

Celebrated for her books about love, the writer might finally win a Nobel Prize for something darker

Treating 5-year-old Barbara Bowles required doctors who were “on a mission, looking for something brand-new.”

Childhood Leukemia Was Practically Untreatable Until Dr. Don Pinkel and St. Jude Hospital Found a Cure

A half century ago, a young doctor took on a deadly form of cancer—and the scientific establishment

Sacel Castle was the primary home of the Nopcsa family, which traced its roots in the area to the 14th century.

History Forgot This Rogue Aristocrat Who Discovered Dinosaurs and Died Penniless

Now fallen into shadow, the Romania-born Baron Franz Nopcsa was a groundbreaking scientist, adventurer — and would-be king

Wayfair's app lets you see how their products will look in your house.

How Augmented Reality Will Change How You Buy Furniture

Thanks to a new Google 3D technology named Tango, mobile devices will be able to insert virtual images into a real place

An aerial view of the southwest side of the island.

The Best Caribbean Island You’ve Never Heard Of

This tropical paradise is packed with lush landscapes and secret pleasures

Ray Halliburton, 92, at his ranch in Luling, Texas

A Portrait of an American Hero and a Generation That Is Slowly Fading Away

Photographer Dan Winters shows us the modern-day life of an unheralded World War II veteran

A captive Eurasian brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos) in Denmark.

Age of Humans

Mama Bears Use Humans To Keep Their Cubs Safe

During mating season, humans might stress female bears out, but male bears stress them out more

Shanghai in 2009.

Age of Humans

Stop ‘Naming and Shaming’ Polluted Cities. It Doesn’t Work

Why calling out ‘Most polluted cities’ sometimes backfires

Wolfgang Neubauer (at Carnuntum’s center) estimates the population at 50,000.

Austria

The Discovery of a Roman Gladiator School Brings the Famed Fighters Back to Life

Located in Austria, the archaeological site is providing rich new details about the lives and deaths of the arena combatants

Keep on the sunny side

Age of Humans

Podcast: “Warm Regards” and the Challenge of Humanizing Climate Change

Meteorologist Eric Holthaus and others seek the bright side of an often gloomy conversation

Roald Dahl's classic, The BFG

Steven Spielberg on Why He Made The BFG

The director talks about the new adaptation, the cast and having John Williams compose the score of the film

The Fantastic Mr. Dahl

The British author’s world—antic, subversive, wildly inventive and monstrously humane—returns to the screen in Steven Spielberg’s The BFG

A map shows the distribution of the slave population in the Southern states of the United States, based on the 1860 census.

History of Now

The Surprising History of the Infographic

Early iterations saved soldiers’ lives, debunked myths about slavery and helped Americans settle the frontier

The Bullet Cluster, originally detected using weak lensing

Think Big

“Weak Lensing” Helps Astronomers Map the Mass of the Universe

By making galaxies a little bit brighter, it points the way to elusive galaxies and lets us detect that most mysterious of substances: dark matter

One of the board games in the collections of the Museum of World War II

How the Nazis “Normalized” Anti-Semitism by Appealing to Children

A new museum and exhibit explore the depths of the hatred toward Europe’s Jews

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