Our ancestors’ ability to recognize water sources was crucial to their survival. As a result, the attraction to lustrous materials is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history and is evident among prehistoric artifacts, ancient civilizations, and modern consumer culture. ...

Two years into his prison term for a 2020 murder, Ivan Rossomakhin was recruited into a Russian private military company (PMC) in exchange for freedom. He returned home from Ukraine in 2023 and, within days, killed an 85-year-old woman in a nearby town. One...

The late 19th century saw economists, mainly German and Austrian, create a mythology of money’s origins that is still repeated in today’s textbooks. Money is said to have originated as just another commodity being bartered, with metal preferred because it is nonperishable (and hence amenable...

Amid ongoing discussions over Donald Trump’s plans for trying to resolve conflicts in Ukraine and Israel, the U.S. president has maintained steady pressure on NATO allies for months. After his 2024 election victory, Trump again raised the prospect of annexing the Danish territory of...

Five times a day, approximately one-fourth of the world’s population turns toward Mecca to bow their heads in prayer. The Kaaba at the center of this global genuflection has a cornerstone that some speculate is a meteor. ...

On February 4, 2025, Chicago’s business community pushed back against Mayor Brandon Johnson’s proposal to raise real estate transfer taxes, adding to the city’s ongoing economic struggles. ...

Over more than a thousand years, Venice transformed from a modest refuge into a dominant Mediterranean power. Despite various crises and encircling empires, the Venetian Republic avoided foreign rule, revolution, and collapse. ...

Numeracy or numerosity, the ability to think about and use numbers, varies among human cultures and within populations, much like intelligence does. ...

The 2024 U.S. presidential election was framed as a crucial test for the nation’s political system, with ongoing concerns over oligarchy, mob rule, a breakdown of equal protection under the law, and the ultimate power of citizens to determine the fate of the nation. ...

A free-flowing river supports abundant fish and wildlife, provides drinking water, and other intangible recreational benefits. But humans have sought to block rivers with dams for millennia. While dams have provided benefits like hydroelectricity and water storage, they have also been ecologically disastrous. Besides...