A scene from "Time Bomb Y2K" depicting a situation room filled with computers.

Heritage 2000

Some years wield such power that you must comply with them.
Green frog with white circles and squiggly lines surrounding it denoting sound

The Many Lives of ‘Sounds of North American Frogs’

This metamorphic record is a teaching tool, a flirtation device, a college radio favorite, a nostalgic object, and more. BOOP!
Psychedelic images coming from a chemical flask.

When America First Dropped Acid

Well before the hippies arrived, LSD and other hallucinogens were poised to enter the American mainstream.
Black doctor tending to a Black patient in a bed with family nearby

How Tens of Thousands of Black U.S. Doctors Simply Vanished

My mother was a beloved doctor. She is also a reminder, to me, of every Black doctor who is not here with us but should be.
Woman and man looking at the fiji mermaid

Nineteenth-Century Clickbait

The exhibition “Mermaids and Monsters” explores hoaxes of yore.
Train cars between drifts of snow up to the top of the engine, with onlookers watching

The Monster Blizzard That Turned Kansas Into a Frozen Wasteland

The 1886 blizzard imperiled settlers and left fields of dead cattle in its wake.
The fur of the woolly dog Mutton

What Happened to the Extinct Woolly Dog?

Researchers studying the 160-year-old fur of a dog named Mutton found that the breed existed for at least 5,000 years before European colonizers eradicated it.
A participant in the Tuskegee syphilis study sits on steps in front of a house in Tuskegee.

The US Once Withheld Syphilis Treatment From Hundreds of Black Men in the Name of Science

The archival trove chronicles the extreme measures administrators took to ensure Black sharecroppers did not receive treatment for the venereal disease.
Photo of "Madness: Race and insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum" with photo of author Antonia Hylton alongside it.

What It Was Like to Be a Black Patient in a Jim Crow Asylum?

In March 1911, the segregated Crownsville asylum opened outside Baltimore, Maryland, admitting only Black patients.
Young boy receiving polio vaccine from doctor

Hesitancy Against Hope: Reactions to the First Polio Vaccine

Hesitancy and opposition to vaccines has existed in the past, and such awareness provides needed context to the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine within American history.
Pneumatic tube station

Something Old, Something Pneu

Pneumatic tubes offered a leap forward in business and communications, in the office and across the city.
Robert Millikan and Albert Einstein standing side by side.

The Posthumous Trials of Robert A. Millikan

Robert A. Millikan was once a beloved figure in American science. In 2021, his name was removed from buildings and awards. What happened?
Man holding a rare Razorback Sucker fish from the Colorado River.
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At 50 the Endangered Species Act is Worth Celebrating

Before the Endangered Species Act, the federal government had actually encouraged the killing of certain species.
Chickens and eggs.

The Unending Quest To Build A Better Chicken

Maybe what we need is not just a new form of poultry farming but a complete revolution in how we relate to meat.
Margaretta Hare Morris.

The Mischievous Morris Sisters

Two gifted sisters in Philadelphia helped to transform early American science.
Reconstruction of a woolly dog.

Mutton, an Indigenous Woolly Dog, Died in 1859

New analysis confirms precolonial lineage of this extinct breed, once kept for their wool.
A drawing of the 1833 Leonid meteor shower above a village.

The Massive Meteor Shower That Convinced People the World Was Ending

Wednesday night will bring a brilliant meteor shower, but the far bigger Leonid shower 190 years ago had people believing Judgment Day was at hand.
Operatives using air defense systems.

The Two Chomskys

The US military’s greatest enemy worked in an institution saturated with military funding. How did it shape his thought?

Slavery and the Journal — Reckoning with History and Complicity

Reexamining biases and injustices that the New England Journal of Medicine has historically helped to perpetuate.
An advertisement from P.T. Barnum’s American Museum promoting a show called "Wild African Savages."

How U.S. Institutions Took an African Teen’s Life, Then Lost His Remains

Sturmann Yanghis, a 17-year-old South African, was put on stage in America as a “wild savage.” Harvard claimed his remains when he died. Then they disappeared.
Painting of an owl superimposed on a painting of its range around Puget Sound.

The Epic History of the Endangered Species Act

The two-volume ‘Codex of the Endangered Species Act’ takes a long look back — and forward.
A group of Black medical students outside Howard University's medical school
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The History Behind America’s Shortage of Black Doctors

Decisions about medical training and licensing in the 19th and early 20th century are still having an impact today.
The cult-like aesthetic of technocracy, 1942.

Margaret Mead, Technocracy, and the Origins of AI's Ideological Divide

The anthropologist helped popularize both techno-optimism and the concept of existential risk.
Painting of the Great Fire of Pittsburgh from right outside the city

The Asbestos Times

Asbestos was a miracle material, virtually impervious to fire. But as we fixed city fires in other ways, we came to learn about its horrific downsides.
ACT UP protesters demanding the release of experimental medication for those living with HIV/AIDS.

Patient Rights Groups Are Learning the Wrong Lessons From ACT UP

These groups are invoking ACT UP's legacy to push for further deregulation of the FDA. Here's why they're wrong.
An Audubon shearwater, named for John James Audubon, one of America's most famous birders and an enslaver

Dozens of Bird Names Honoring Enslavers and Racists Will be Changed

The American Ornithological Society says it will alter all human names of North American birds, starting with up to 80 species.
Employees working at desks in post office

Guaranteed Income? 14th Grade? Before AI, Tech Fears Drove Bold Ideas.

Three-quarters of a century before artificial intelligence concerns, rapid advances in automation prompted panic about mass unemployment—and radical solutions.
Abacus, mathemeticians, and zeros and ones.

How Everything Became Data

The rise and rise and rise of data.
Nurses attend to patients in rows of hospital beds.

In 19th-Century Philadelphia, Female Medical Students Lobbied Hard for Mutual Aid

In a century-long tradition, students at the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania came together in solidarity to combat illness among their members.
Painting of a valley with storm clouds

Storm Patrol

Life as a Signal Corps weatherman was dangerous: besides inclement weather, they faced labor riots, conflicts with Native Americans, yellow fever outbreaks, fires, and more.