Science

Anthropologists study the hormones in hair to compare the stress levels of people nearing death today with those who died 100 years ago.

In 2018, Gerber selected baby Lucas as the winner of its Spokesbaby Contest, making Lucas the first Gerber baby with Down syndrome.

His vision of a tech-optimized future inspired a generation. But his true talent was for burnishing his own image.

Public-health officials don’t need to tiptoe around how monkeypox is currently being transmitted.

Malaria — literally, if not scientifically, "bad air" — once claimed Washingtonians by the score. So why did some doctors believe it wasn't real?

For decades, salmon, catfish, and trout traveled in America's fleet of "Fish Cars."

Before social media communities formed around shared concerns, interests, politics, and identity, print media connected communities.

For decades, blind programmers have been creating the tools their community needs.

A contemporary Atlantic writer reflects on one of the voices from the magazine's archives who helped shape the publication—and the nation.

No woman should have to go through what I went through, and no woman should have to overcome barriers to obtain a safe abortion.

Just over 100 years ago, loop-the-loops were painful, not sturdy, and much more dangerous than they are today.

Wetlands absorb carbon dioxide and buffer the excesses of drought and flood, yet we’ve drained much of this land. Can we learn to love our swamps?

For years, the idea seemed immoral and dangerous.

The practice of vaccination in the U.S. cannot be divorced from the history of slavery.

Human relationships to this global crop have been shaped by both violence and resilience.

In 1897, the 25th Infantry Regiment Bicycle Corps embarked on a 1,900-mile journey from Montana to Missouri.

Resiliency and the ability to develop coping mechanisms may define our times.

Decade by decade, firearms have become deadlier—and tightened their grip on our collective imagination.

Poplar—ubiquitous in timber, landscape design, and Indigenous medicines—holds new promise in recuperating damaged ecosystems.

Scientists have found toxic levels of the chemical at large. And some groups are making the case to produce even more.

On Annie Payson Call’s advice to tired nineteenth-century workers.

New understandings of how disease spread informed Imogene Rechtin's ill-fated 1910 campaign to ban a universal human practice.

An 1860 census record offers a glimpse into the choices available to pregnant women who were enslaved.

Of all the objections NIMBYs raise to new housing and infrastructure, perhaps the most risible is that their community is already too crowded.

For decades, consumers were duped into believing that a fat-free food label would put them on track for weight loss, when the complete opposite was true.

On the women who kickstarted the ecological restoration movement in America.

Looking back on 150 years of history shows that American women grappled with miscarriages amid different legal, medical, and racial norms.

Decades of biological research haven't improved diagnosis or treatment. We should look to society, not to the brain.

The history of humans being confounded by color photography.

When horses gallop, do all four hooves ever leave the ground at once? This episode of The Disappearing Spoon recounts the saga that led to the answer.