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...
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...Ecological Constitutionalism: A Necessity
by Jens Kersten
14 minutes
It is no longer a new idea to state that we are living in the Anthropocene—an era in which humanity has become a force of nature. But when we look mor...Adventures in Mockstitutions
by Jenny Price
7 minutes
“If You Need to Use the Art” is an alt-institution public art project—or a mockstitution, to use artist Gregory Sholette’s moniker. These projects mim...
Not Every Kid Is WEIRD: A Conversation with Francesca Mezzenzana
by Francesca Mezzenzana and Brady Fauth
16 minutes
Francesca Mezzenzana received a PhD in anthropology from the London School of Economics. Her current research project, LearningNatures, investigates c...Rivers as Battlefields: Ukraine’s Dnipro
18 minutes
Wars turn the natural environment into battlefields. In economic wars, regions perceived as rich in resources become contested bounty for powerful pre...Mother Drone, Mother Nature: The Griffon Vulture and Israel’s Military
22 minutes
In July 2020, Israeli television reported on an endangered griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus) chick who had lost his mother to electricity wires. As would ...Home, Roots, Cosmos: A Path through Calvino’s Ecology
15 minutes
The house is Villa Meridiana. You get there by going up a little side street that skirts Via Alessandro Volta, just outside the center of town. It’s u...Yoruba Architectural Sites in Nigeria
14 minutes
Heritage preservation is the strategy of conserving the cultural and environmental history of a certain time and place, and it also has political, spi...“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...Weathered History: Galveston and Extreme Events
17 minutes
Texas had seen rain before, plenty. It had flooded before, many times. But on 25 August 2017, Hurricane Harvey dumped a volume of water never before c...I Still Do a Lot of Good
by Nina Wormbs
5 minutes
Economic thinking permeates our modern societies. It is so pervasive that we do not reflect on the fact that it rules much of what we do. But we might...