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Articles

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

A reconstruction of naked chrysopoid larva with "dorsal basket."

Some Ancient Insects Wore the Exoskeletons of Other Bugs to Disguise Themselves

New amber specimens show that insects have been mastering the art of disguise for 100 million years

Future of Energy

A Canadian Company’s Quest To Turn Air Pollution Into Fuel

Startup Carbon Engineering has opened a prototype plant in Squamish, British Columbia, that captures carbon dioxide emissions

You'll never guess how researchers found this fossil of the petite terrestrial crocodile Hoplosuchus kayi.

These Are Some of the Weirdest Ways Paleontologists Find Fossils

Sometimes you pee on them, sometimes you’re just trying to get away from other paleontologists. Here are the discovery stories scientists won’t tell you

Museum collections can help public health officials identify new diseases, learn their origins, and determine how to best stop them.

Museum Director Calls for Increased Funding for Scientific Collections to Save Lives

Infectious disease researchers should be using museum collections to fight newly discovered pathogens

A group of students on a tour of Brooklyn Grange.

Honeybees are the Stars at New York City’s Coolest Field Trip

People are buzzing about world’s largest rooftop soil farm

Tucked inside the campus of Indiana University, the Lilly Library is your one-stop shop for rare cultural treasures

See the Gutenberg Bible, 32,000 3D Mechanical Puzzles and a Lock of Edgar Allen Poe’s Hair at This Rare Library

Curiosity is a credential at Indiana University Library’s Lilly Library

"Beach at Bologne" by Edouard Manet

Inventing the Beach: The Unnatural History of a Natural Place

The seashore used to be a scary place, then it became a place of respite and vacation. What happened?

Hospital staff in West Darfur receive the yellow fever vaccine.

Why We’re Giving People 20 Percent Doses of the Yellow Fever Vaccine

Vaccine stores in Africa have repeatedly been depleted. The WHO’s decision to allow mini-doses reflects a precarious—and cyclical—shortage

Workers start to encircle the island of San Paolo with the first floating elements, April 2016.

Nine Northern Italian Destinations to Visit After You View Christo’s “Floating Piers”

Cultural and historical treasures abound near Lake Iseo

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