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Long dead and gone, the Rochester Subway lives on in the imagination – and on this map

Everyone is mesmerized by Apple’s ability to revolutionize the way we think about IT products. With the iPhone, for example, Apple has morphed a mere communication device into a platform […]

After spending the past three years on the faculty at Ohio State, I remain ambivalent about the vast commercialization and big time money pouring into college athletics. Of course, it […]

NOVA’s new Mt. Saint Helens special has some great footage of the volcano, but plays a little loose with the science and doomsday tone.

Large swaths of European airspace remains closed due to Eyjafjallajökull eruption – and there is no clear end in sight. UPDATE: Now with chemical composition of the ash!

If you think that a thumbs up in ancient Rome meant that the beaten gladiator would live and that a thumbs down meant death, you can thank Jean-Léon Gérôme’s 1872 […]

In chemistry, a free radical is the name for an atom or group of atoms having at least one unpaired electron, thus making it unstable and highly reactive. From the […]

This crazy scheme would have restored the prehistoric land bridge between the UK and the Continent

In an exclusive Q&A, a former pimp reveals details about how his business was organized, how much he made, and how he kept a stable of women working for him.

James Hansen, NASA climate scientist, has argued strongly against Cap and Trade legislation, promoted the need for a carbon tax, complained of muzzling by the Bush administration, and has even […]

I always used to laugh at people who ignored the lyrics to “Every Breath You Take” by The Police and thought it was a lovely love song. If it’s about […]

“Today’s college students scored 40 percent lower on a measure of empathy than their elders did,” according to a new study that demonstrates the selfish, competitive nature of the times.

“Just rejoice at this news!” So said Mrs Thatcher outside Downing Street as Prime Minister on news that the Royal Marines had recaptured the uninhabited, ice bound island of South […]

While Thomas Eakins’ masterpiece The Gross Clinic undergoes a facelift on the east coast in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s An Eakins Masterpiece Restored: Seeing The Gross Clinic Anew (my […]

One supercontinent, ringing the equator

n Some maps capture the imagination and inspire so much imitation that they become icons. Harry Beck’s 1930s map of the London Underground is one of the best examples (here […]

Imagine for the moment a classic work of modern art as pictured above. When a curator takes a heavy and bulky wooden frame, places it around the complex and uncertain […]

Ever since Lafayette, some connection between America and France, however tenuous, has existed. One of the strongest bonds between the two countries is the American love of French art. When […]

Jenny Holzer works in words. Her art flows from the endless river of language that surrounds us. She dips her hands into that river and pulls out a tiny handful […]

This map, showing the surface and population of selected world cities, is outdated by over two decades. It was published in the Dallas Morning News on 9 June 1983, since […]

In the history of the Universe, life—and human life in particular—has not been around for very long. But University of Michigan theoretical astrophysicist Katie Freese believes it’s possible that life […]

For many people, even those most enlightened when it comes to art and culture, Africa remains “the dark continent” out of which little emerges that sparks interest. The Museum for […]

Fact: over half the world’s population lives in cities. Fact: all developed cities like New York, Tokyo, Singapore and London, are in a race to become “wired”.  Fact: the most […]

If you listen to the entire video of Shirley Sherrod’s infamous NAACP remarks, somewhere around the 14 minute mark, your stomach will start to curdle as you hear her describe […]

“There is certainly some strange power that has some overlook on me & directing my life,” Winslow Homer wrote in a letter to his brother late in his life. “That […]

Geoff Jones, a Harvard Business School professor, knows everything there is to know about mascara. He’s an expert on the beauty industry, a sector that dates back to ancient civilization. […]

The cultural revolution of the 50s and 60s made the development of the morning-after pill an important moment in the women’s rights movement.

Imagine everyone decided to stop producing fossil fuels tomorrow. Global warming thresholds calculated by climate change scientists would not be crossed. Danger lies in future production.

Mass shootings are mercifully rare in Britain. “Gunman goes on killing spree” is a newspaper headline that one might expect to read every ten years or so. But none of […]

The second part of Eruptions readers’ recollections of the historic May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.