• Science

    Psychology

    How Many Licks? On Tootsie Pops, Desire and the Science of Delayed Gratification

    Sarah Perry Explores the Psychological and Material Factors Behind Our Candy Consumption Habits

     
    By Sarah Perry  February 4, 2025
    Mathematics

    How the Islamic Golden Age Helped Create Modern Mathematics

    By Raúl Rojas  January 15, 2025
    Prehistory

    Out of Africa: Discovering Our Shared Human Family, From Toumai to Turkana Boy

    By Zeinab Badawi  January 15, 2025
    Neuroscience

    An Emotional Time Machine: How Our Sense of Smell Can Unlock Childhood Memories

    By Jonas Olofsson  January 13, 2025
    Family Histories

    From Red Dust to Distrust: On the Unhealed Wounds of Nuclear Testing

    By Emily Yates-Doerr  January 9, 2025
    Best of 2024

    Lit Hub’s 50 Noteworthy Nonfiction Books of 2024

    By Literary Hub  December 24, 2024
    Book Marks: What the Critics Are Saying
    Psychology

    The Green-Eyed Monster: On the Benefits and Pitfalls of Experiencing Envy

    By Dr. Guy Leschziner  December 11, 2024
    Illness

    An Ageist Disease: On Living in Fear of Alzheimer’s

    By Andrea Gilats  November 21, 2024
    The Moon

    “Moonstruck.” How Myths of Lunar Power Continue to Fascinate Us

    By Kate Golembiewski  November 20, 2024
    Human Behavior

    Laugh a Little: Why We All Should Be Telling More Jokes

    Alison Wood Brooks on the Importance of Humor in Building Professional and Personal Relationships

    By Alison Wood Brooks  January 24, 2025
    Founding Fathers

    Benjamin Franklin: As Much Scientist As Statesman

    By Richard Munson  November 14, 2024
    Animals

    Witnesses to a Changing World: On the Longevity and Endurance of the Greenland Shark

    By Katherine Rundell  November 12, 2024
    Science Writing

    Memories in the Marsh: A Love Letter to Exploring, Studying, and Creating Art in Nature

    By Anna Farro Henderson  November 11, 2024
    Dinosaurs

    The Great Dying: How Mass Extinction Made the Dinosaurs

    Armin Schmitt on Earth’s Millennia-Long History of Reoccurring Cataclysms

    By Armin Schmitt  November 6, 2024
    Psychedelics

    Anatomy of a Bad Trip: On the Less-Than-Magical Side of Magic Mushrooms

    By Eugenia Bone  October 23, 2024
    Science!

    The Power and Possibility of Play: Why Science Is More Than Just Facts and Equations

    By Kelsey Johnson  October 16, 2024
    Language

    Language, Loss and Nostalgia: On Growing Old As a Learning Experience

    By Julie Sedivy  October 16, 2024
    Memoirs

    What the Science of Memory Can (and Can’t) Reveal about Truth in Memoir

    Debra Nystrom on the Power of Personal Story Alongside Objective Study

    By Debra Nystrom  October 9, 2024
    History of Science

    The Forgotten Female Novelist Who Foresaw Ecology, Environmentalism, and Realist Fiction

    By John MacNeill Miller  September 25, 2024
    The Natural World

    Seeing in the Dark: On Bats as Companions, Protectors and Muses

    By Vanessa Chakour  September 24, 2024
    The Hub

    Earth is about to get a second moon… but what will it mean for the lit world?

    By James Folta  September 23, 2024
    Mathematics

    Humanity’s Strangest Language: On the Joys of Translating Math

    Ben Orlin Considers New Ways to Think About—and Have Fun With—Numbers, Variables and Equations

    By Ben Orlin  September 5, 2024
    Animals

    Fashionably Monochrome Mammals: On the Pleasures of Watching Skunks

    By Sharman Apt Russell  September 4, 2024
    On Translation

    How Arabic Translations of Ancient Greek Texts Started a New Scientific Revolution

    By Josephine Quinn  September 4, 2024
    The Natural World

    Oceans That Glow: On the Timeless Beauty of Bioluminescence

    By Alan Lightman  November 20, 2024
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