Dante and Hell as Medieval Social Media
If social media had existed in medieval Florence, Dante Alighieri would have used it like…
Forget the Battlefield: Rwanda Found a Better Use for Drones
These days, drones usually make the news for grim reasons. They appear in reports from…
Hygge: The Danish Art of Doing Very Little, Very Well
Somewhere in the middle of the 2010s, Britain collectively learned a Danish word and immediately…
Aspirin: The Tiny Tablet With an Enormous Medical History
Aspirin is the sort of medicine that has become almost invisible through familiarity. It sits…
The Great Emu War
There are military defeats, and then there is the Great Emu War. A lesser-known, delightfully…
Fish and Chips: From Immigrant Food to British Institution
Fish and chips feels so thoroughly British that questioning its nationality seems almost impolite. It…
DNA Ethnicity Estimates: Can Your Saliva Really Tell You Where You Come From?
You spit into a small plastic tube, put it in the post and wait for…
The Order of St Patrick: The Knighthood Ireland Left Behind
There are institutions that disappear with a bang, and there are institutions that simply stop…
Sinbad the Sailor: Seven Voyages and Absolutely No Lessons Learned
Sinbad the Sailor may be literature’s greatest argument against the idea that people learn from…
Autoimmunity and the Mystery of Biological Friendly Fire
Your immune system has one job that sounds wonderfully simple: identify things that do not…
The Strange Love Life of the Emu
Romance among emus begins with a rather important reversal of expectations. The female does much…
Kublai Khan: The Mongol Who Conquered China and Lost an Empire
Being the grandson of Genghis Khan must have made family expectations rather uncomfortable. Build a…
Pumpernickel: The Bread That Takes All Night
Most bread tries to make life easy. Mix flour with water, persuade some yeast to…
The Lewis gun: Odd, Loud and Loyal
The Lewis gun looks like the sort of thing a steampunk enthusiast might dream up…