The art-science that captured the wonder of some of “the most brilliant productions of Nature.”
While the French seamstress turned scientist Jeanne Villepreux-Power was solving the [...]
How to bear the gravity of being.
In many ancient creation myths, everything was born of a great cosmic ocean with no beginning and no end, lapping matter and spirit into life. In the cosmogony of [...]
How to “include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken, and without a border.”
Life is an ongoing dance between the subjective reality of [...]
The psychological machinery of our commonest coping mechanism for the terror of hurt, rejection, and abandonment.
The hardest thing in life isn’t getting what we want, isn’t even knowing [...]
“We’ve come this far, survived this much. What would happen if we decided to survive more? To love harder?”
We know that the atoms composing our bodies and our brains can be traced [...]
Notes on the eternal dialogue between art and science in our yearning to know reality.
On the morning of April 10, 1535, the skies of Stockholm came ablaze with three suns intersected by several [...]
“The people we love are built into us.”
“There is no place more intimate than the spirit alone,” the young May Sarton (May 3, 1912–July 16, 1995) wrote in her stunning ode [...]
Searching for “that principle which keys us deeply into the pattern of all life.”
“Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will,” Baudelaire wrote — [...]
“Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back.”
Love is both the tenderest mirror and the cruelest. How much and how well we show up for love reflects what we believe ourselves worthy of. [...]
“Self-knowledge… is not an aim in itself, but a means of liberating the forces of spontaneous growth. In this sense, to work at ourselves becomes not only the prime moral obligation, [...]
At the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan, one athlete pulled a move that, as far as we know, no one else had ever attempted.
In this episode, first aired in the Spring of 2016, we tell you about Surya [...]
In 2021, editor Alex Neason's grandfather passed away. On his funeral program, she learned the name of his father for the first time: Wilson Howard. Not Neason. Howard. And when she asked her family [...]
Foreign enemies have seldom brought war to U.S. soil… right? In this episode from 2017, we tell you strange stories of foreign enemies landing on our shore.
From bombs floating across the country [...]
At first glance, Golden Balls was just like all the other game shows — quick-witted host, flashy set, suspenseful music. But underneath all that, each episode asked a very serious question: can you [...]
Heaven and hell, Judgement Day, monotheism — these ideas all came from one ancient Persian religion: Zoroastrianism. Also: Sky Burials. Zoroastrians put their dead on top of a structure called The [...]
Abortion pills — a combo of two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol — are on notice: on April 7, 2023, a federal judge said the FDA’s approval of mifepristone was invalid. And then, not more [...]
How much does knowledge cost? While that sounds like an abstract question, the answer is surprisingly specific: $3,096,988,440.00. That’s how much the business of publishing scientific and academic [...]
Tuesday afternoon, summer of 2017: Scotty Hatton and Scottie Wightman made a decision to help someone in need and both paid a price for their actions that day — actions that have led to a legal, [...]
Cat Jaffee didn’t necessarily think of herself as someone who loved being alone. But then, the pandemic hit. And she got diagnosed with cancer. Actually, those two things happened on the exact same [...]
Anyons, anyone?
Scientists have created strange new particle-like objects called non-abelian anyons. These long-sought quasiparticles can be “braided,” meaning that they can be moved [...]
While volunteering at the University of New Mexico’s Children’s Hospital in Albuquerque, Quinton Smith quickly realized that he could never be a physician.
Then an undergrad at the [...]
If you ever come across a Cooper’s black orchid in the wild, you probably would mistake it for a stick — or perhaps an odd potato if you dig a little underneath it. Unlike many others of its [...]
It’s hard to know how busy this year’s Atlantic hurricane season will be, thanks to a rarely observed combination of ocean and climate conditions.
The Atlantic Ocean is in an active storm [...]
Planetary scientists now know how thick the Martian crust is, thanks to the strongest Marsquake ever observed.
On average, the crust is between 42 and 56 kilometers thick, researchers report [...]
Meet the house that diapers built.
Researchers have designed and erected a house that has shredded, disposable diapers mixed into its concrete and mortar. A single-story home of about 36 [...]
Giardia has plagued people for a long time.
The parasite can bring about dysentery — a miserable (and occasionally deadly) mixture of diarrhea, cramps and fever. Scientists have now [...]
Microbial stress can be a boon for young trees.
Saplings grown in soil microbes that have experienced drought, cold or heat are more likely to survive when faced with those same conditions, [...]
More than 5,000 animal species previously unknown to science live in a pristine part of the deep sea.
Their home — called the Clarion-Clipperton Zone — sits in the central and eastern [...]
Beer breweries’ trash may have been Danish painters’ treasure.
The base layer of several paintings created in Denmark in the mid-1800s contains remnants of cereal grains and brewer’s [...]
As an object, “TV Bra” perfectly encapsulates Paik’s artistic goals, Moorman’s brilliance as a performer, their personal history, and its cultural context.
The quantification of bodies, senses, and experience did not begin with surveillance capitalism but can be traced back to mathematical and statistical techniques of the 19th century.
Twenty-five years before our era of fake news and celebrity pseudoscience, the star actor teamed up with Montel Williams to promote an unfounded conspiracy.
Bonnie Marranca, the longtime editor of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, speaks with the legendary performer, visual artist, composer, poet, and filmmaker.
Barbara Mazzolai’s roboplants could analyze and enrich soil, search for water and other chemicals, or even be used to grow infrastructure from scratch.
A Rocket Lab Electron rocket stands on Pad B, Launch Complex 1, in Māhia, New Zealand, just ahead of a successful launch on Friday, May 26, with NASA’s Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation [...]
"If I can advocate for all the groups that need equity, I'm glad to do it." – Anita Dey, Strategic Partnerships Manager, Outreach and Engagement, NASA Headquarters
The SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft, named Freedom, is seen as it approaches the International Space Station with four Axiom Mission 2 private astronauts aboard on Monday, May 22, 2023.
The four astronauts who will fly around the Moon on NASA’s Artemis II visited Washington on Wednesday, May 17, to discuss their upcoming mission with members of Congress and others.
