A One-Line Equation That Turns Order Into Chaos

Fifty years after Robert May’s influential paper, the logistic map still challenges our intuition about prediction.

Simpson’s Paradox: When the Trend Reverses

Imagine a drug that works. Give it to mild cases and they recover more often. Give it to severe cases and they recover more often. Then you…

How Mississippi’s “Affidavit Ballots” Demonstrate How Voter Suppression Works

The New Face of an Old Fight: How Mississippi Continues to Undermine Black Voting Power

Even as the Mercury Dropped Below the Freezing Point, a Rowing Regatta…

… Kept my camera busy until the battery was drained.

Ask Ethan: Can you explain the Higgs boson in depth?

The Higgs boson, officially discovered in 2012, is unique among all known fundamental particles. But what is it really all about?

How the EU’s Copernicus Program Measures the Earth’s Temperature

How does Copernicus measure the Earth’s temperature? What instruments and data are used? And how reliable are the measurements?

Neanderthal Bone-Tipped Hunting Weapons: Evidence from Mezmaiskaya Cave and Abric Romaní

Two archaeological finds, dating to approximately 80,000–70,000 and 50,000 years ago, provide evidence of Neanderthal bone-point technology…

Hidden Beneath Graffiti: Hundreds of Palaeolithic Engravings Discovered in a Cave Thought to Have…

New study finds one of the largest Palaeolithic cave art sites in the Iberian Mediterranean hidden in a tourist cave

3 original methods for measuring the distance to the stars

For thousands of years, humanity had no idea how far away the stars were. In the 1600s, Newton, Huygens, and Hooke all claimed to get…

Why Historians Can’t Agree On What This Mysterious Painting Means

The secrets of this Renaissance masterpiece refuse to be cracked

How Will We Bring About an Irish Socialist Republic?

Is peace all it’s cracked up to be?

The Tougaloo Nine: The Students Who Challenged Jim Crow at the Jackson Municipal Library

Nine Students, One Library, and a Defining Challenge to Mississippi’s Jim Crow Order

Mississippi Getting a Black Senator is the Exception, Not the Rule.

Why Measuring America’s Progress by Mississippi’s Failures Misses the Bigger Picture

Why Did the Soviet Union Produce So Many Maths Geniuses?

From after-school circles to research seminars, Soviet mathematicians built ways to find and develop talent, even when official…

P.B.S. Pinchback: The Louisiana Black Man Who Was Elected U.S. Senator But Not Allowed to Serve.

P.B.S. Pinchback Won a Senate Seat, but Reconstruction Politics Kept Him From Taking It

Why Modern Academics Still Struggle to Understand the Ancient Greeks: The Julian Jaynes Problem

The invention of consciousness, or the amplification of knowledge?

5 Ways Countries Stymie Climate Negotiations Without Actually Saying ‘No’

The methods can be subtle but effective at slowing progress, particularly when fossil fuels are involved. Here’s what to watch for as the…

A fake Einstein quote actually explains the affordability crisis

Einstein never said his famous “compound interest” quote. But the math of compound interest — and its inverse, inflation — explains so…

Why Doesn’t a Laser Beam Lose Its Shape?

Why laser beams keep their shape — and how that leads to twisting light.