Science

Combing across 19th-century shores, seaweed collectors would wander for hours, tucking specimens into pouches, before pasting their finds into artful albums.

The father of game theory helped develop the atom bomb—and thought he could calculate when to use it.

No matter the outcome of West Virginia v. EPA, the agency can take action to engage the public and make its data more accessible.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the U.S. came with censorship and obfuscation about the effects of the radiation on those who were exposed.

How a team of fearless American women overcame medical skepticism to stop whooping cough, a vicious infectious disease, and save countless lives.

The overlooked first mentor of Thomas Jefferson.

IBM’s chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue was eclipsed by the neural-net revolution. Now, 25 years on, the machine may get the last laugh.

The history of the movement is one of unlikely success. But what can we learn from embattled experiments like prescribed heroin? 

An act of love in the form of a medicinal tonic.

Fewer fires are burning worldwide than at any time since antiquity. But in banishing fire from sight, we have made its dangers stranger and less predictable.

Hiding behind "academic freedom," E. O. Wilson actively propagated race pseudoscience in collusion with white supremacists.

How the rise of alternative, "natural," medicines led Americans to equate food with moral character.

Vaccine skepticism and misinformation have persisted since the smallpox epidemics. With the internet, it's only gotten worse.

What the autism diagnosis says about you.

The white pine known as Tree 103 had lost the dewy glow that it had back in 1675.

Actions by the medical profession in the 1970s still reverberate today.

Corporate deregulation has long curtailed OSHA’s power to safeguard workers.

Access to information only goes so far to explain the curious link between secrets and those who tell them.

The past provides a key lesson to minimize the damage from the omicron surge.

Plastic production just keeps expanding, and now is becoming a driving cause of climate change.

The farm tractor wasn’t born overnight. Perfecting it led to a three-way battle between Ford, John Deere and International Harvester.

Fire is a planetary feature, not a biotic bug. What can we learn from Yosemite’s experiment to restore natural fire?

On the nineteenth-century artists and thinkers who pictured a future of abundance powered by steam.

We all can thank a 19th century Boston-born cookbook author and domestic science pioneer for revolutionizing the way recipes are replicated at home.

The ivory-billed woodpecker hasn't been seen for decades. The government is ready to declare it extinct—but at what cost?

Fifty years later, the legacy of the National Cancer Act illustrates the need for a broad approach.

Did Ancestral Puebloans watch the skies from Mesa Verde's Sun Temple? Solving its mysteries requires overcoming archaeology’s troubled past.

Counting both uninfected and infected people helps us better understand a pandemic.

The maternal health intervention from a century ago that worked.

In moving away from fossil fuels, some in aviation are thinking of bringing back helium-assisted flight.