Science

The inventor did not look for problems in need of solutions; he looked for solutions in need of modification.

We’re still dealing with the repercussions of a discredited 1998 study that sowed fear and skepticism about vaccines.

Apollo 11, the JPEG, the first pop-up ad, and 33 other bits of software that have transformed our world.

Can the social contract be protected from a measles outbreak?

The books examine the history of space exploration, from the race to discover Pluto to the idea of space colonization.

Edwin Forrest’s 1851 divorce trial.

On September 1st, 1858, a mob stormed the New York Marine Hospital in Staten Island, and set fire to the building.

Railroads and photography, developed largely in parallel and brought about drastic changes in how people understood time and space.

The popular way to keep warm outdoors owes a debt to World War II–era clothing science.

Charles Schulz used his culturally monolithic comic strip to advocate for public health. But his approach had some serious shortcomings.

The dark side of the medical industrial complex.

A deluge of new findings are challenging long-held scientific narratives of how humans came to North and South America.

Rural educator Frank Cyr had the vision and pull to force the nation to standardize the color of the ubiquitous vehicle.

If you think dropping a nuclear bomb into the eye of a hurricane is a bad idea, wait'll you see what they had in mind for the polar ice caps.

Many take the separation between science and politics for granted, but this view of science has its own political origins.

They can wreck your eyes, and they can land you 14 years in jail for shining one at a police chopper. But where did they come from?

A review of two new books on the postwar origins of “the Environment.”

In the 1930s, a forgotten federal bureau experimented with ways to make soy and other products more popular in the U.S.

Digital messaging was supposed to make our work lives easier and more efficient, but the math suggests that meetings might be better.

Counterculture-inspired research flourished in the Age of Aquarius.

Groundbreaking discoveries... but at what cost?

They slaughtered our ancestors and derailed our history. And they’re not finished with us yet.

Submarines played a major role in WW I. But the first submersible was actually used, unsuccessfully, in the Revolutionary War.

Poppy Northcutt planned the vital flight trajectories that got astronauts home from their missions to the moon.

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

A recollection of a NASA employee's experiences with Apollo 11 and 12.

Trans people have existed since the dawn of time. The internet has not.

The return of the disease reflects historical amnesia, declining faith in institutions, and a lack of concern for the public good.

Contrary to what Clarence Thomas recently claimed, eugenicists never favored abortion as a means of population control.

The British were a pain, to be sure, but what really caused him trouble were his teeth.