Science

A decade before Lewis and Clark, André Michaux wanted to explore the American continent. Spying for France gave him that chance.

Known as a master of horror, he also understood the power—and the limits—of science.

The smallpox epidemic of the 1860s offers us a valuable, if disconcerting, clue about how epidemics actually end.

Kevin Cook on the warnings NASA ignored, with tragic results.

Observing the visible features of Martian landscapes, Giovanni Schiaparelli began seeing things almost immediately.

While smallpox was ravaging late 18th century Britain, John Haygarth thought up of a plan to pay people for public health compliance.

Can a cross-border effort to bring wild bison to the Great Plains restore one of the world's most endangered ecosystems?

Indigenous nations are spearheading a movement to restore buffalo to the American landscape.

A collection of well-funded UFO obsessives are using their Capitol Hill connections to launder some outré, and potentially dangerous, ideas.

We get the culture our technology permits, and in the 21st century no technological development has changed culture like that of the smartphone.

Why the rich historical names given to birds should not be scrubbed for the sake of political correctness.

Stephen Kinzer discusses his new biography, “Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control.”

Fixating on Black vaccine skepticism obscures a rich history of Black medical and scientific innovation.

One solution to climate change may come from our pre-automotive past.

At least 12 Black chemists and physicists worked as primary researchers on the team that developed the technology behind the atomic bomb.

As a diagnosis, it’s too vague to be helpful—but its rise tells us a lot about the way we work.

For care in pregnancy and childbirth, Black parents are turning to a traditional practice.

A prominent intellectual and naturalist, the Maryland native wrote extensively on natural phenomena and anti-slavery causes.

Recorded accidentally by the Navy during the Cold War, "Songs of the Humpback Whale" became a hit album that changed perceptions about the natural world.

For decades, flying saucers were a punch line. Then the U.S. government got over the taboo.

When professor Norman E. Himes published The Medical History of Contraception in 1936, he had made a tactical move, to legalize birth control.

Audrey Clare Farley on the scientists who weaponized biology.

When germ theory displaced the idea of "miasmas" we lost important knowledge about tackling airborne disease.

A new book tackles the deep and persistent American intellectual tradition we might call Science-hesitant.

Elizabeth Catte’s new book traces a shameful history and its legacy today.

Sixty-six years ago, people celebrated the polio vaccine by embracing in the streets. Our vaccine story is both more extraordinary and more complicated.

After the Soviet Union sent the first human safely into orbit, the U.S. government doubled down on its effort to win the race to the moon.

America’s first opioid crisis came after its bloodiest war, but the lessons of the original debacle have been lost in history.

Over 30 years, dramatic consolidation has meant higher prices, fewer treatment options and less incentive to innovate.

History shows that the benefits of such a system can extend far beyond the venues into which such a passport would grant admission .