Interview Steve Ramirez on How to Change a Memory November 05, 2025 As a graduate student at MIT, Steve Ramirez successfully created false memories in the lab. Now, as a neuroscientist working at the frontiers of brain science, he foresees a future where we can replace our negative memories with positive ones. Read More
Interview Philippa Gander on Life in Sync November 05, 2025 All of life is profoundly shaped by the daily, monthly, and yearly cycles of our planet, and all creatures have internal timekeeping systems that rely on cues from the surrounding environment. Read More
Essay Scratching the surface October 29, 2025 Death confronts us all as the ultimate rupture and mystery at the very heart of life. That existential challenge has been met, it turns out, of an almost infinite variety of customs and rituals. Read More
Essay The seafood platter – past, present, and future October 24, 2025 The Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba and Curaçao are famed for their sun-kissed beaches. Just fifty miles to their east, the lesser-known Bonaire island is treasured by scuba divers precisely for its lack of beaches, bathers and tourist hotels. Read More
Essay Prose is a prison, poetry a prism October 15, 2025 In the late 1990s, I worked as a machinist in Rochester, New York, where I operated a 1937 Brown & Sharpe No. 00 Automatic Screw Machine, fabricating precision parts for Xerox photocopiers. Read More
Essay On A Violence October 15, 2025 I love swimming. In the summer, at the community pool, I like diving dramatically from the shallow end to the deep end, under the rope with its small blue and white floating barrels. I like gazing out at the rippling aqua rectangle, in all its green lawn. Read More
Essay Architecture’s forgotten figures October 10, 2025 Like any other subject, the history of modernist architecture has its favored heroes and plotlines, but also important figures who drop out of sight despite their contemporary successes. Ella Briggs is one of them. Read More
Essay Why should I care? Åšantideva’s Project in How to Lead an Awakened Life October 06, 2025 Jay L. Garfield (author of How to Be Caring, How to Lose Yourself, and Losing Ourselves, all ¿ìɫֱ²¥) writes about the benefits of caring, both to society and to individuals. Read More
PUP Life: Celebrating National Poetry Day October 03, 2025 National Poetry Day is the largest mass celebration of poetry in the UK, with more than 1.5 million people participating annually. As an office of literature lovers, ¿ìɫֱ²¥ Oxford decided to mark the day with a dedicated time of poetry reading, featuring tea, doughnuts, and poets ranging from Rosetti to Robson. Read More
Unearthing the deep history of Native America October 01, 2025 As part of our longstanding Farmington River Archaeological Project, my field crew initiated an intensive search for sites in Peoples State Forest in 1985. Peoples is a heavily wooded state park consisting of about 3,000 acres located in the northwest Connecticut hill town of Barkhamsted. Read More
Essay Growing old: The opportunity of burden September 25, 2025 A vibrant, ever-present elder force can act as a new role model to young people about what aging can and should look like—a corrective against ageist stereotypes and fears. When elders are better integrated into society, everyone benefits. Read More
Essay Why killing vampires makes people happy September 25, 2025 John Blair is the author of Killing the Dead, a riveting history of vampire panics across cultures and down through the millennia—and why killing the dead is better than killing the living. Read More
Interview Julia R. Azari on Backlash Presidents September 22, 2025 Julia R. Azari shows how, throughout American history, administrations that challenge the country’s racial status quo are followed by presidents who deal in racially charged politics and presidential lawlessness, culminating in impeachment crises. Read More
Essay The drowning child September 22, 2025 There are hundreds of thought experiments in philosophy, but not many have any influence beyond the discipline. Peter Singer’s drowning child thought experiment is a rare exception. Read More
Interview Ludovic Orlando on Horses September 18, 2025 Ludovic Orlando garnered world acclaim for helping to rewrite the genomic history of horse domestication. His book takes you behind the scenes of this ambitious genealogical investigation, revealing how he and an international team of scientists discovered the elusive origins of modern horses. Read More