Émigrés: French Words That Turned English July 16, 2021 Richard Scholar examines the continuing history of untranslated French words in English and asks what these words reveal about the fertile but fraught relationship that England and France have long shared. Read More
Problem solving: The next generation July 15, 2021 The pandemic laid bare how brittle the systems are that we rely on to provide care in the US. Read More
What do the ancients have to teach us? July 15, 2021 Marshall Poe recently had a fascinating conversation with Rob Tempio, the talented editor behind the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series. The books in this series present the timeless and timely ideas of classical thinkers in lively new translations. Read More
Sarah Fowler on a love of identification guides and sharks July 14, 2021 My first experience of a shark, as a small child, was uncomfortably close up. The shark was rolled up inside a sausage of netting, rather like Tom Kitten in the Tale of Samuel Whiskers. Read More
Jaws, lost sharks, and the legacy of Peter Benchley July 13, 2021 Jaws, the mere mention of the movie conjures up images of a large triangular fin cutting through the water, beneath it a large fearsome-looking toothy shark swimming with a sense of authority, a purpose. Read More
Teaching your mind to fly: The psychological benefits of birdwatching July 13, 2021 It is now a matter of common knowledge—bolstered by significant and growing scientific documentation—that immersion in the natural world can provide measurable benefits to human physical and mental health. Read More
Tonio Andrade on The Last Embassy July 12, 2021 George Macartney’s disastrous 1793 mission to China plays a central role in the prevailing narrative of modern Sino-European relations. Read More
We Are Not Born Submissive: How Patriarchy Shapes Women’s Lives July 09, 2021 What role do women play in the perpetuation of patriarchy? On the one hand, popular media urges women to be independent, outspoken, and career-minded. Yet, this same media glorifies a specific, sometimes voluntary, female submissiveness as a source of satisfaction. Read More
Book Club Pick: Uneasy Street July 01, 2021 This month’s Book Club Pick is Uneasy Street by Rachel Sherman. This is an excellent non-fiction summer book club selection for readers who are curious about the lives of the 1%. Read More
On self interest June 30, 2021 Self-interest drives capitalism. Capitalism’s friends and foes agree on this, even if they agree on nothing else. Read More
Who was Euclid? June 29, 2021 Euclid of Alexandria: mathematician, author of the Elements of Geometry. Utterer of apocryphal quips including the famous put-down to Ptolemy I: ‘there is no royal road to geometry’. Who was he? What did he look like? Read More
A look inside A World Divided June 28, 2021 Hoi An is a lovely Vietnamese town, one that managed to survive, largely unscathed, the wars that ravaged the country in the twentieth century. Read More
The Spirit of Green: The Economics of Collisions and Contagions in a Crowded World June 26, 2021 Solving the world’s biggest problems—from climate catastrophe and pandemics to wildfires and corporate malfeasance—requires, more than anything else, coming up with new ways to manage the powerful interactions that surround us. Read More
The fall of Masada June 24, 2021 Two thousand years ago, 967 Jewish men, women, and children reportedly chose to take their own lives rather than suffer enslavement or death at the hands of the Roman army. Read More
Ants as artists and architects June 23, 2021 I have always been an experimental biologist. Ants have been my life, and I have tracked their behavior from above ground for over fifty years. Read More