The imaginary king who changed the real world | Matteo Salvadore

Beginning around 1377, medieval England was shaken by a power struggle between two noble families, which spanned generations and involved a massive cast of characters, complex motives and shifting loy...

15 Feb 20195min

When you take a bite of a hot pepper, your body reacts as if your mouth is on fire -- because that's essentially what you've told your brain! Rose Eveleth details the science and history behind spicy ...

15 Feb 20193min

Loki the mischief-maker, writhes in Thor's iron grip. The previous night, he'd snuck up on Thor's wife and shorn off her beautiful hair. To fix what he'd done, Loki rushes to the dwarves and tricks th...

7 Jan 20194min

In ancient times, wildcats were fierce carnivorous hunters. And unlike dogs, who have undergone centuries of selective breeding, modern cats are genetically very similar to ancient cats. How did these...

3 Jan 20194min

Despite water covering 71% of the planet's surface, more than half the world's population endures extreme water scarcity for at least one month a year. Current estimates predict that by 2040, up to 20...

6 Dec 20184min

Kurt Vonnegut found the tidy, satisfying arcs of many stories at odds with reality, and he set out to explore the ambiguity between good and bad fortune in his own novels. He tried to make sense of hu...

29 Nov 20185min

The earliest time measurements were observations of cycles of the natural world, using patterns of changes from day to night and season to season to build calendars. More precise time-keeping eventual...

23 Okt 20185min

Cigarettes aren't good for us. That's hardly news -- we've known about the dangers of smoking for decades. But how exactly do cigarettes harm us, and can our bodies recover if we stop? Krishna Sudhir ...

13 Sep 20185min