The Unbearable Weight of Displaced Weather
by Mike Hulme
11 minutes
Through apps, webcams, and other forms of digital mediation, the weather is always with us. Yet, more significantly, it is not just “our” weather that...Walking a Sicilian River
by Paolo Gruppuso and Erika Garozzo
13 minutes
On the sandy shoreline of eastern Sicily, the Simeto River meets the Ionian Sea against the dramatic backdrop of the volcano Etna. Groves of reeds sur...
Killing a Baboon: Applied History and the Anthropocene Ape
by Sandra Swart
36 minutes
#JusticeForRaygun is trending in South Africa. He was a young male baboon who had left his mother’s troop and set off, on a journey to adulthood. This...Cultures of Tarhana: A Tale of Humans and Microbes
18 minutes
The cultures of tarhana—a fermented instant soup base—come with a long-practiced culinary tradition in the Middle East and the Balkans. Although often...“Everybody Talks About the Weather”
16 minutes
One summer day in 1966, the 23-year-old secretary Margot Müller was serving coffee at the McCann advertising agency’s Frankfurt office. In the confere...Avian Escapees and Budgie Snugglers
28 minutes
Late one evening soon after I had arrived in Australia for a sabbatical, I was out strolling with my daughter through a Sydney park, seeking relief fr...
“We Have Always Known”: On the Trails of People, Plants, and Humboldt
by Paula Ungar
12 minutes
I am trying to focus on my writing, I really am. But my phone buzzes again. This time, the message is difficult to ignore. I see a photograph of my be...In the Teeth of History: Dental Decay in the Longue Durée
by Frank Zelko
27 minutes
In recent years, I have been writing a book on the history of water fluoridation, a practice that is dental dogma in a handful of countries, particula...Talking Fungus: Finding Language for a Troubled Kingdom
10 minutes
Language greatly colours the way we perceive life. Words and concepts shape our perception of nature, and not all organisms receive equal consideratio...The Value of Fragments: Making a Hotspot in Mount Nimba, Liberia
by Emmanuelle Roth and Gregg Mitman
28 minutes
Faint high-pitched sounds echo up from the cavernous pit into which we peer. At twilight’s edge, the dry season’s intense midday sun has mellowed into...How Wild Is Wild?
12 minutes
Potter Stewart, a former Justice of the US Supreme Court, famously said of hard-core pornography that it was hard to define but he knew it when he saw...The World as a Wardian Case
by Kate Brown
21 minutes
In 1829, Nathanial Bagshaw Ward, a London doctor, placed the pupa of a sphinx moth, some dirt, and a few leaves in a glass bottle and clamped on a lid...