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Part science, part magic: an illuminating history of healing with light

For millennia, humans had one obvious and reliable source of light – the Sun – and we knew the Sun was essential for our survival.

The Conversation · Nov 6, 2024

Kristallnacht’s legacy still haunts Hamburg − even as the city rebuilds a former synagogue burned in the Nazi pogrom

Johanna Neumann was 8 when she witnessed a mob of local citizens and Nazis vandalizing the Bornplatz Synagogue in Hamburg. They were “shouting and throwing stones at the marvelous glass windows,” as she later said in an oral history interview. Other students at the Jewish school nearby described a mountain…

The Conversation · Nov 5, 2024

Maduro and His Crony Made Millions While Venezuelan Children Starved

Venezuela is governed not only by a brutal dictatorship, but by a band of depraved criminals who have enriched themselves in part by stealing money intended to buy food for hungry children.

Reason · Oct 25, 2024

The Abandonment Of This Early City Might Be Less Mysterious Than Many Think

Why abandon and dense and robust town? For early civilization the answer might lie in city planning — and disease.

Inverse · Oct 19, 2024

During the American Revolution, Brits weren’t just facing off against white Protestant Christians − US patriots are diverse and have been since Day 1

In 1770, Barnard Gratz of Philadelphia wrote to a friend complaining about a recent speech by King George III. Gratz, an American patriot, wrote that the speech “was such narishkeit” that it was “not worth the postage.”

The Conversation · Oct 18, 2024

32 physics experiments that changed the world

From the discovery of gravity to the first mission to defend Earth from an asteroid, here are the most important physics experiments that changed the world.

LiveScience · Oct 18, 2024

‘The waters become corrupt, the air infected’: here’s how Ancient Greeks and Romans grappled with environmental damage

Today the perilous state of the environment is often in the news. Many stories describe how Earth is being damaged by human beings and discuss ways to prevent this.

The Conversation · Oct 17, 2024

What is Chabad-Lubavitch? A Jewish studies scholar explains

If you live anywhere near New York – or anywhere in the world, really – you may have seen a picture of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Yellow posters of the rabbi’s face are stuck to lampposts or streetlights: an elderly man with a long white beard and black hat.

The Conversation · Oct 16, 2024

Socially distanced layout of the world’s oldest cities helped early civilization evade diseases

In my research focused on early farmers of Europe, I have often wondered about a curious pattern through time: Farmers lived in large dense villages, then dispersed for centuries, then later formed cities again, only to abandon those as well. Why?

The Conversation · Oct 15, 2024

Rain may have helped form the first cells, kick-starting life as we know it

Billions of years of evolution have made modern cells incredibly complex. Inside cells are small compartments called organelles that perform specific functions essential for the cell’s survival and operation. For instance, the nucleus stores genetic material, and mitochondria produce energy.

The Conversation · Oct 15, 2024