Geometric design of influenza epidemic

The 1918 Influenza Won't Help Us Navigate This Pandemic

We have no historical precedent for this moment.
Three women in swimsuits

Policing the Bodies of Women Athletes Is Nothing New

For women who play sports, there's often no way to win.
Painting of smallpox vaccination

The Long History of Mandated Vaccines in the United States

Vaccines against smallpox during the Revolutionary War are one example of how mandates have protected the health of Americans for more than two centuries.
US Army soldiers sitting behind bison heads taken from poacher Ed Howell.

Why the US Army Tried to Exterminate the Bison

And then took credit for "saving" them.
Anti-vaccination pamphlets from the early 1900s

Vaccine Hesitancy in the 1920s

As Progressive Era reforms increased the power of government, organized opposition to vaccination campaigns took on a new life.
British soldiers with a four-horn sound locator. This photograph documents a military drill during the interwar period.

Powers of Hearing: The Military Science of Sound Location

During WWI the act of hearing was recast as a tactical activity — one that could determine human and even national survival.
Drawing of 19th century woman in science laboratory

Scientists Understood Physics of Climate Change in the 1800s – Thanks to a Woman Named Eunice Foote

The results of Foote's simple experiments were confirmed through hundreds of tests by scientists in the US and Europe. It happened more than a century ago.
Abstract drawing of Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe, Crank Scientist

The great discoveries of the age captivated Poe’s imagination. He almost always misunderstood them.
Woman holding syringe

How Anthony Comstock, Enemy to Women of the Gilded Age, Attempted to Ban Contraception

Hell hath no fury like a man with a vaginal douche named after him.
A group of people wading in the ocean.

The Swelter of Summer: Heat Waves and the Urban Heat Island in New York City History

A history of record-breaking highs but also of sweaty, sticky, corporeal experiences.
Cribs in maternity ward
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Worried About a Population Bust? History Shows We Shouldn’t Be.

Letting panic about fertility rates drive policy is dangerous.

Seeing the Pandemic Through the Shuttered Bungalows of an L.A. Sanatorium

Once a haven for tuberculosis patients, Barlow Respiratory Hospital is uniquely suited to the COVID and post-COVID eras.
Children wiping away sweat

8 Creative Ways People Kept Cool Before Air Conditioning

People have come up with a range of ingenious, harebrained, and sometimes grim but often remarkable ways to stay cool during a summer scorcher.
Drawing of boy with bottle of bitters

The Bitter Truth About Bitters

A bottle of bitters from about 1918 had significant amounts of alcohol and lead—and not a trace of the supposed active ingredient.
Woman's glowing face

“A Revolutionary Beauty Secret!”

On the rise and fall of radium in the beauty industry.
Abstract painting titled 'Constellation' by Helen Gerardia

A New Planet in the System

Early Americans conscripted the universe into their nation-building project.
Drawing of ailing person in bed with another person sitting in chair facing them

How Early Americans Narrated Disease

Early Americans coped with disease through narratives that found divine providence and mercy in suffering.
Wally Funk today and as a pilot

Guess Who’s Going to Space With Jeff Bezos?

Wally Funk has been ready to become an astronaut for six decades.
Illustration of men around an old printing press

Benjamin Franklin's Fight Against a Deadly Virus

Colonial America was divided over smallpox inoculation, but he championed science to skeptic.
ACT UP protesters take part in an act of civil disobedience near the West Steps of the U.S. Capitol in 2004.
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AIDS Disappeared From Public View Without Ending. Will Covid-19 Do the Same?

By thinking of diseases just as medical problems, we allow them to fester in poor communities.
A lightbulb with a virus inside

World War II’s Lesson for After the Pandemic

The U.S. needs another innovation dream team.
A performer on stage

The Mermaid in the Fishbowl

The rise of optical illusions and magical effects.
A diagram of the phases of the Moon.

Man-Bat and Raven: Poe on the Moon

A new book recovers the reputation Poe had in his own lifetime of being a cross between a science writer, a poet, and a man of letters.
Man and woman researching using machines

Where Would We Be Without the Paper Punch Card?

An 80-by-10 grid punched into a paper card helped drive us out of the Industrial Age and into the Data Age.
André Michaux walking through a landscape of botanical drawings.

The Forgotten French Scientist Who Courted Thomas Jefferson—and Got Pulled Into Scandal

A decade before Lewis and Clark, André Michaux wanted to explore the American continent. Spying for France gave him that chance.
Edgar Allan Poe.

Edgar Allan Poe’s Other Obsession

Known as a master of horror, he also understood the power—and the limits—of science.
A COVID-19 burial in India

This Pandemic Isn’t Over

The smallpox epidemic of the 1860s offers us a valuable, if disconcerting, clue about how epidemics actually end.
Space Shuttle Challenger explosion

How Legendary Physicist Richard Feynman Helped Crack the Case on the Challenger Disaster

Kevin Cook on the warnings NASA ignored, with tragic results.
Illustration from Percival Lowell's Mars as the Abode of Life, 1908.

Alien Aqueducts: The Maps of Martian Canals

Observing the visible features of Martian landscapes, Giovanni Schiaparelli began seeing things almost immediately.
John Haygarth.
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Paying People to Get Vaccines is an Old Idea Whose Time Has Come Again

While smallpox was ravaging late 18th century Britain, John Haygarth thought up of a plan to pay people for public health compliance.