Podcast What do the ancients have to teach us? July 15, 2021 Marshall Poe recently had a fascinating conversation with聽Rob Tempio, the talented editor behind the聽Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series.聽The聽books in this series present聽the timeless and timely ideas of classical thinkers in lively new translations. Read More
Essay Sarah Fowler on a love of identification guides and sharks July 14, 2021 My first experience of a shark, as a small child, was uncomfortably close up. The shark was rolled up inside a sausage of netting, rather like Tom Kitten in the Tale of Samuel Whiskers. Read More
Essay Jaws, lost sharks, and the legacy of Peter Benchley July 13, 2021 Jaws, the mere mention of the movie conjures up images of a large triangular fin cutting through the water, beneath it a large fearsome-looking toothy shark swimming with a sense of authority, a purpose. Read More
Essay Teaching your mind to fly: The psychological benefits of birdwatching July 13, 2021 It is now a matter of common knowledge鈥攂olstered by significant and growing scientific documentation鈥攖hat immersion in the natural world can provide measurable benefits to human physical and mental health. Read More
Interview Tonio Andrade on The Last Embassy July 12, 2021 George Macartney鈥檚 disastrous 1793 mission to China plays a central role in the prevailing narrative of modern Sino-European relations. Read More
Podcast We Are Not Born Submissive: How Patriarchy Shapes Women鈥檚 Lives July 09, 2021 What role do women play in the perpetuation of patriarchy? On the one hand, popular media urges women to be independent, outspoken, and career-minded. Yet, this same media glorifies a specific, sometimes voluntary, female submissiveness as a source of satisfaction. Read More
Interview Book Club Pick: Uneasy Street July 01, 2021 This month鈥檚 Book Club Pick is Uneasy Street by Rachel Sherman. This is an excellent non-fiction summer book club selection for readers who are curious about the lives of the 1%. Read More
Essay On self interest June 30, 2021 Self-interest drives capitalism. Capitalism鈥檚 friends and foes agree on this, even if they agree on nothing else. Read More
Essay Who was Euclid? June 29, 2021 Euclid of Alexandria: mathematician, author of the Elements of Geometry. Utterer of apocryphal quips including the famous put-down to Ptolemy I: 鈥榯here is no royal road to geometry鈥�. Who was he? What did he look like? Read More
Essay A look inside A World Divided June 28, 2021 Hoi An is a lovely Vietnamese town, one that managed to survive, largely unscathed, the wars that ravaged the country in the twentieth century. Read More
Podcast The Spirit of Green: The Economics of Collisions and Contagions in a Crowded World June 26, 2021 Solving the world鈥檚 biggest problems鈥攆rom climate catastrophe and pandemics to wildfires and corporate malfeasance鈥攔equires, more than anything else, coming up with new ways to manage the powerful interactions that surround us. Read More
Essay The fall of Masada June 24, 2021 Two thousand years ago, 967 Jewish men, women, and children reportedly chose to take their own lives rather than suffer enslavement or death at the hands of the Roman army. Read More
Essay Ants as artists and architects June 23, 2021 I have always been an experimental biologist.聽Ants have been my life, and I have tracked their behavior from above ground for over fifty years. Read More
Video Things Fall Together book trailer June 22, 2021 Things in life tend to fall apart. Cars break down. Buildings fall into disrepair. Personal items deteriorate. Yet today鈥檚 researchers are exploiting newly understood properties of matter to program materials that physically sense, adapt, and fall together instead of apart. Read More
Podcast Taken for Granted: The Remarkable Power of the Unremarkable June 20, 2021 Why is the term 鈥渙penly gay鈥� so widely used but 鈥渙penly straight鈥� is not? What are the unspoken assumptions behind terms like 鈥渕ale nurse,鈥� 鈥渨orking mom,鈥� and 鈥渨hite trash鈥�?聽 Read More
