John Steinbeck, 1935.

Returning to Steinbeck’s Sea of Cortez

A literary classic doubles as data, helping scientists trace decades of ecological change in the Gulf of California.
A woman receiving equine-assisted therapy at Spirit Horse Ranch near Kula, Hawaii.

Equine-Assisted Therapy: But What Do the Horses Think?

An emerging critique examines the moral and cultural assumptions behind horse-based interventions.
Poster for Hamers bicycles, depicting six cyclists in a Dutch landscape.

Bicycling Into the Future

Across centuries, bicycles have embodied hopes for speed, freedom, efficiency, and survival.
Nose icon isolated on blue background

The Missing Sense in Modern Medicine

Researchers argue routine smell testing could detect neurodegenerative disease and other health risks years earlier than current exams.
Source: https://collections.artsmia.org/art/36169/gathering-wild-rice-seth-eastman

Wild Rice and the Rights of Nature

A groundbreaking lawsuit asks whether wild rice, or manoomin, can hold legal rights under tribal law and the growing rights of nature movement.
An illustration of a fossilized claw from Megalonyx Jeffersonii, a giant ground sloth, found in a cave in Greenbriar County, West Virginia.

Jefferson’s Fossils

What can Thomas Jefferson’s mistaken ideas about fossils tell us about science and belief in the early United States?

The Medicinal Wood That Turned Water Blue

For nearly half a millennium, botanists sought the "true" identity of Lignum nephriticum, a mysterious marvel that confounded early modern science.
Colorful landscape with colorful mountains and sun

Rights of Nature: A Reading List

What would it mean for rivers, forests, and animals to have legal rights? A global movement is rethinking law’s relationship to nature.
An illustration of a forest consumed by fire as animals flee.

The Fires This Time

To understand current mass burning events better, scientists are turning to the phenomenon known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly.
Origanum syriacum

Za’atar: From Ancient Texts to Modern Conflict

More than an herb, za’atar shapes, narrates, and anchors identity and political dynamics of the Eastern Mediterranean and Sinai Peninsula.