Science

John Canaday's poems look at nuclear weapons from the intimate perspectives of its developers.

After the drug was dismissed by the pharmaceutical company that developed it, a researcher started experimenting on himself with it. Powerful hallucinations ensued.

What did the signs and the phases of the moon mean to moon farmers in the 1840s?

According to John Wesley Powell, outside of the Pacific Northwest, the arid lands of the west could not be farmed without irrigation.

Each generation revises his myth. Here’s the true story.

Perhaps, in ethical terms, it doesn’t matter whether overhunting was or was not the cause of the passenger pigeon’s extinction. Practically speaking, it matters a good deal.

While researching the history of racism in Silicon Valley, Lisa Nakamura is surprised to discover the Navajo Nation's role in the creation of the tech industry.

From iceboxes to stainless steel behemoths: An Object Lesson.

The history of "proving", the practice of auto-experimentation that forms the cornerstone of homeopathic medicine.

Putting massive amounts of time in perspective is incredibly hard for humans, so we made this graphic.

On the movement away from midwifery towards hospital births.

Ann Hodges was hit by a meteorite in her Alabama home in 1954.

The needs and entrepreneurship of wounded soldiers have driven many of the most significant advances in prosthetic technology.

Stories from the early days of air-conditioning in New York City movie theaters, and reflections on the technology's impacts in across the American South.

Jim Downs discusses the plight of freed slaves during the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Audubon drew the attention of the American people to the richness and diversity of nature in America, helping them see it in national and environmental terms.

Embroidered orchards and peony hair ornaments testify that women were practitioners of floral display, but many women sought knowledge as well as style.

The writings of the Scottish-born American naturalist John Muir are known for their scientific acumen as well as for their rhapsodic flights.

Revisiting the public health lessons learned during the 1918–1919 pandemic and reflecting on their relevance for the present.

Reporter Catherine Moore visits the first hospital in the New World and finds out why the “public plan” in the Virginia colony may have had its drawbacks.

Jill Lepore on disease outbreaks of pandemic proportions, media scares, and the parrot-fever panic of 1930.

George R. Lawrence captured one of the most iconic photos of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. That was only one event in his very interesting life.

A brief history of Trans Fats.

Benjamin Franklin introduced the magical picture, an experiment that played on the king's beloved image and his deadly force.

Heritage animal breeding has transformed living history museums and challenged both the public and historians to reconsider colonial Americans’ animal world.

Before it became the New World, the Western Hemisphere was an altogether more salubrious place to live at the time than, say, Europe.

Representative Mo Udall's ambitious strategy to wean the United States off fossil fuels by the year 2000.

Read the original article that unearthed the Tuskegee experiment.

In 1965, eight years before Roe v. Wade, an anonymous woman described the steps she took to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

Meyer Berger’s 1938 look at the technology, history, and culture of eavesdropping, from the wiretapping of Dutch Schulz to the invention of the Speak-O-Phone.