Exploring bleeding edge experiments, oddities, new and bizarre dicoveries, and fact-checking conspiracy theories since 2008. No question is out of bounds and no topic is too strange for a deep dive.
# politics
Despite the constant gloom and doom, the world is actually safer, wealthier, and less violent than it's ever been in recorded history.
# politics
Comparing what America and the USSR did to their own citizens during the Cold War is a fool's errand. The USSR was objectively worse to its people.
# science
A group of anthropologists crossed from being respectful to non-Western cultures and their history to being patronizing and condescending.
# politics
Inertia applies not only to objects with mass, but to bureaucracy and large institutions that have grown out of control.
# science
Genetic studies confirm that the Black Death was a strain of the bubonic plague making its way through Europe with outbreaks in trade hubs.
# politics
The Discovery Institute needs a scapegoat for everything wrong with the world today. And surprise, surprise, it's always Darwin's fault.
# politics
UK musicians Pig With The Face Of A Boy put together a fantastic nod to Russian history.
# science
Peer review, long seen as a feature of any scientific endeavor, is actually a fairly new idea. And you wouldn't believe the stuff that got published as science before it was put in place...
# science
An analysis of King Tutankhamun's DNA confirms he's the son of Akhenaten and brings the short, unpleasant history of his reign into focus.
# science
If we ever ended up in the past, it's tempting to think our modern skills would make us rich and famous. But putting those skills to use centuries ago is trickier than it sounds...