A small Babylonian tablet brought to the British Museum in the late twentieth century preserved one of the most startling flood traditions in ancient literature. Irving Finkel, a leading cuneiform scholar at the British Museum, eventually identified it as part of the Atra-hasis flood tradition, a Mesopotamian story older than the biblical Genesis account. The

The Story of Ferdinand remains one of the most quietly radical children’s books ever published. Ferdinand is a bull who does not want to fight. While the other bulls run, jump, and butt their heads together, Ferdinand prefers to sit under a cork tree and smell flowers. His refusal to perform aggression makes him gentle, but

A single molar from Chagryskaya Cave in Siberia is changing the way researchers understand Neanderthal medical skill. The tooth, from an adult Neanderthal, contained a deep cavity reaching the pulp chamber, along with scratches around the hole. Fine-pointed stone tools found at the cave may have been used to remove decayed tissue. Scans and experiments

Lester Wright became a symbol of extraordinary aging when he ran the 100-meter dash the day after his 100th birthday. He completed the race in 26.34 seconds at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia, finishing ahead of competitors aged 86 and 92 as a crowd of 38,000 stood and cheered. Though the time was never officially

White phosphorus is one of the most terrifying substances used in modern warfare. It ignites on contact with air, burns at extremely high temperatures, produces thick smoke, and can cause severe injuries to skin, eyes, lungs, homes, fields, forests, soil, and water. Its use is permitted in some military contexts, especially to create smoke screens,

Atrazine, one of the most widely used herbicides in the United States, has been cleared for continued use after a federal review concluded that it does not pose an extinction-level threat to protected wildlife. The decision effectively supports continued application of the chemical on corn, sorghum, sugar cane, and other crops. Farmers apply an average

Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, has taken a historic step by banning public advertising for fossil fuel products and meat. The law applies to city-owned spaces, including buses, trams, metro stations, benches, shelters, and billboards. Ads for airlines, cruises, faraway vacations, gas-powered cars, beef, chicken, pork, fish, and fast-food meat products are now restricted

A vast living infrastructure lies hidden beneath forests, grasslands, farms, and wild landscapes. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi attach to plant roots and send threadlike filaments through the soil, helping plants receive nutrients and water while moving carbon underground. These networks are increasingly being recognized as one of the planet’s great biological systems. New research in Europe

The climate crisis is no longer only threatening food production through droughts, floods, heat, and crop failures. It is also changing the nutritional quality of the food that does grow. Rising carbon dioxide levels can increase carbohydrate content in plants while lowering essential minerals and protein. The result is a quieter danger: people may eat

Ultra processed food has become one of the most contested issues in American health policy. What once sounded like a specialist term from nutrition research is now central to debates over school lunches, food stamps, warning labels, children’s advertising, grocery packaging, and the political future of the Make America Healthy Again movement. Federal regulators are