Are Animals Religious?
Are humans the only religious species? New research on chimpanzees, elephants, and other animals challenges our assumptions about awe, grief, ritual, and the emotional roots of religion.
What Fantasy Gets Wrong About Sacred Groves
Fantasy loves sacred groves as untouched relics of a lost world. This video shows what scholars actually find on the ground, and why sacred groves thrive not through isolation, but…
How Dinosaur Extinction Gave Us Fruit
One of the most surprising effects of the cascade of changes that played out in the wake of dinosaur extinction may have been the evolution of a world absolutely teeming…
When Ancient Weeds Fooled Us
Ancient weeds began mimicking early crops again and again over the course of the agricultural revolution, as ancient farmers made similar mistakes in different places at different times.And it turns…
Not Just the Tudors: When Europe met Islam
In the Early Modern period the boundaries between Christian and Islamic civilisations were far more porous than we imagine: Isaac Newton’s library included Arabic biographies of the Prophet Muhammad; the…
Chinese Porcelain
A BBC Documentry
Scientists mimicking the Big Bang accidentally turn lead into gold
Medieval alchemists dreamed of transmuting lead into gold. Today, we know that lead and gold are different elements, and no amount of chemistry can turn one into the other. But…
Parakeets feeding on barn wall display Amazonian behaviour
A flock of ring-necked parakeets that were filmed feasting on the wall of a 19th Century barn were echoing Amazonian feeding habits, an expert has explained. A video of the…
Measles is spreading fast in S.C. Here’s what it says about vaccine exemptions
The vaccination rate among students in Spartanburg County is 90% overall, which is lower than the 95% threshold needed to prevent measles. Measles is one of the most contagious diseases.…
In utero COVID exposure linked to brain changes, developmental delays, anxiety, and depression
In utero SARS-CoV-2 exposure may predispose children to altered brain volumes, impaired cognition, and internalizing emotional problems such as anxiety and depression, researchers from Children’s National Hospital and George Washington…