What Comes Next_
Thoughts on AI, predictive text, technological metaphors, and the string of thought.
🤔Q&A with Nathan Ballantyne
Nathan Ballantyne shares insights on enhancing human judgment.
🧬What Is Epigenetics?
How epigenetics shapes our biology beyond DNA, influencing traits across generations through mechanisms like DNA methylation.
🎤Ma Rainey's Mic Drop
Blues legend Ma Rainey turns scandal into song, recording her defiant "Prove It On Me Blues" in 1928 after rumors swirl about a raided party.
🎵Call and Response
How music's rhythmic bonds shape social behaviors and foster connections, from toddlers to adults.
🧬Extended Evolutionary Synthesis
Evolution has evolved since Darwin, and an emerging new synthesis expands our understanding of what it is and how it functions.
🧬What Is Organism-Centered Evolution?
Explore how organisms evolve beyond genetics, delving into forces like epigenetics and cultural behaviors that shape their development and adaptation.
🪞Polishing the Mirror
Explore how Rumi's poetic mirrors reflect the soulful journey of Sufism, blending divine love with psychological insights.
👑The Coronation of King Charles III
The nearly 1,000 years of tradition behind Britain's first crowning in 70 years.
🍦Who Invented Ice Cream?
From ancient China to American tables, uncover the frosty journey of history's favorite frozen delight.
🌍Five Questions with Matt Warner
Matt Warner, president of Atlas Network, talks about promoting global freedom and human flourishing.
🔮What Is Future-Mindedness?
Prospection, a blend of memory and imagination, shapes our decisions and survival strategies through "mental time travel."
🤔Free Will
Choice matters - New insights into the philosophy, psychology, theology, and neuroscience of free will
🔬Research on Emergence
Explore the intriguing world of emergence where simple elements form complex systems, a concept transforming our understanding across disciplines.
🌀What Is Emergence?
Emergence begins where simple elements unfold into complex systems, from galaxies to societies.
🧠The Power of Positive Self-Talk
Discover how Ethan Kross applies groundbreaking psychology to transform middle school education with the power of positive self-talk.
🧩Complexity
Explore the stories from our three-part research series on complexity from the Santa Fe Institute, a leader of groundbreaking, multidisciplinary research on complex systems.
🧠What Is Complexity?
Explore the intriguing world of complexity, where chaos meets order and simple systems reveal bewildering possibilities.
🧠What Is Religious Cognition?
Explore how beliefs in the divine shape our lives and decisions, in this deep dive into the underexplored field of religious cognition.
🙏Gratitude
Insights and open questions from within the science of gratitude
🎯What Is Fine Tuning?
Explore the enigmatic concept of fine tuning, where the universe's precise constants intriguingly align to support life, sparking debates across science and philosophy.
🌍What Is Cultural Evolution?
Explore how cultural evolution shapes societies and predicts future changes, from songbirds' trills to the spread of lactose tolerance.
🦕The Bone Wars
A bitter rivalry that unearthed dinosaurs and ignited a national obsession.
🤔What Is Intellectual Humility?
Explore the nuanced realm of intellectual humility, a vital virtue that balances curiosity and conviction, enhancing our understanding and discourse.
⛓️The Church Kidnaps Edgardo Mortara
A fascinating, tragic tale.
🕊️Bayard Rustin Marches Free
Pacifist Bayard Rustin marches free this week in 1946. Fresh from prison, his path leads to Gandhi and mentoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
🌟Anna May Wong Steps into the Spotlight
Explore the glamorous yet singular journey of Anna May Wong, Hollywood's first Chinese American movie star to shine globally.
🗳️Reconstruction IV - Voting Rights At Last
A century after the 15th Amendment, the Civil Rights movement challenges Congress to finally deliver on the promise of voting rights for all Americans.
✊🏾Reconstruction III - W.E.B. Du Bois' Black Reconstruction
Uncover W.E.B. Du Bois' revolutionary 1935 critique, *Black Reconstruction*, which reframed the post-Civil War era and challenged biased histories.
👨The Dangerous Myth of the Male Breadwinner
Explore how the myth of the male breadwinner, backed by historical and academic narratives, shaped societal views on family roles and gender dynamics.
⚖️Reconstruction I - Secession on Trial
Jefferson Davis's capture ignites a crucial question — How do you put secession itself on trial?
🗺️Dividing the Desert
A ceremonial pickaxe blow launches the audacious project to divide the desert and link two seas via the Suez Canal.
🕯️What the World Has to Learn from the Philosophy of Afro-Brazilian Religions
Explore how Afro-Brazilian religions blend diverse spiritual elements to address modern life’s complexities.
🕊️‘The Best Form of Self-Interest’
Explore the profound acts of forgiveness within religious communities as they confront unfathomable tragedies with grace and compassion.
⚖️Ethel Rosenberg's Day in Court
Courtroom drama as Ethel Rosenberg faces espionage charges, awaiting a verdict that seals her and her husband's fate.
🌳A Family Tree With 27 Million Branches
A new technique lets researchers plumb oceans of human genetic data to produce the largest ever family tree — and they’re just getting started.
⚖️A Serial Killer Helps Abolish the Death Penalty
1950s London serial killer John Christie unexpectedly played a role in ending capital punishment in Britain.
🕌Religious but Not Spiritual
Explore how "Never Have I Ever" blends humor with the complexities of Hindu identity in modern America, through the eyes of its vibrant protagonist, Devi.
✊Claudette Colvin Didn't Give Up Her Seat
The 15-year-old arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat nine months before Rosa Parks' famous act.
⚖️Hitler Stands Trial
Hitler faced treason charges in a Munich courtroom in 1924 after a near-successful coup.
📜Inequality and the Constitution
Explore how James M. Buchanan's public choice theory intersects with Madison's constitutional ideals, highlighting tensions in America's founding principles.
⚾️Black Baseball Goes Pro
On Feb 13, 1920, Rube Foster led the charge against exclusion, gathering owners to forge a professional league exclusively for Black baseball players.
🔮East Asia’s Religious Futures
Explore how six East Asian countries shape the future of global religion in a groundbreaking survey revealing trends and transformations.
🚬Ancestral Smoking Is Bad for You, Too
A new study links present-day health with childhood tobacco use three generations prior
🚫The Great Comic Book Scare
Explore the Great Comic Book Scare of the 1950s, as figures like Fredric Wertham clash over whether comics truly corrupt America's youth.
🤝‘Together in Our Differences’
New Pluralists are uniting activists, storytellers and funders to explore the paradox and promise of American diversity
🌍Six Continents, 22 Countries, 240,000 Voices - Creating an Unprecedented Window on How Humans Can Flourish and Change
Discover how a groundbreaking study explores global human well-being through the diverse lenses of 240,000 individuals from 22 countries.
👮How ‘Policing for Profit’ Disproportionately Affects Poor and Minority Groups
Explore the impact of Philadelphia's civil forfeiture program, which targeted Black and low-income residents, revealing systemic injustices in asset seizure practices.
😰How Lincoln Almost Lost it All
Union hopes hang on a risky bridge at Fredericksburg in December 1862. Discover how this desperate battle nearly costs Lincoln everything.
🤝The Evolution of Cooperation
Explaining the evolution of cooperation — one of life’s most common, complex, and paradoxical phenomena
🤔Thanksgiving Reconsidered
Reconsider Thanksgiving's history by exploring the Wampanoag story and a crucial 1970 protest challenging the traditional narrative.