Like a shadow, history is attached to every pot shard, pebble, and bone. Nothing on this Earth is without a backstory. Archaeology is all about finding these missing shadows and sewing them together to better understand bygone times. Rare stories are particularly valuable. They offer glimpses into the personal lives of ancient business owners and

Humans are not really considered apex predators because there are several animals that can and sometimes will prey on us. But even the wildest of these animals don’t just go around hunting us, and most prefer to keep their distance. However, this was not always the situation. For much of our evolutionary history, we were

We all know that babies are gross. That’s just a fact of life. Parents are often surprised by how gross their lives have become after their little ones are born. Diaper changes lose their shock value, the smell of spit-up clings to everything, and eating food that’s been on the floor becomes totally normal. That’s

The span of human history has seen many extremes in medicine that have gone horrifically wrong. This linear narrative of trial and error to help the diseased among us has had mixed results. Particularly in the Middle Ages, the Western world was trapped somewhere between ancient medicine, relying largely on ideas by Greek thinkers and

Off the beaten track is one thing, but there are places in the world that the hardiest, most intrepid adventurers would think twice about traveling to. Whether because the climate is so harsh, or the place is so remote, some destinations just don’t seem to be worth the effort. Here, we look at ten locations

Writing can sometimes be seen as a kind of therapy, and people with traumatic pasts are often advised to write down their experiences. After all, authors are usually encouraged to write what they know. However, some people’s backgrounds are more colorful than others. And for those with secrets in their past, writing from experience can

Piracy off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden is a worldwide problem. Today, ships from several navies patrol the area to keep the pirates at bay. But once in a while, the pirates manage to hijack a ship. When that happens, they will only release the ship after receiving a huge

When Netflix released their feature film Bird Box in 2018, many viewers were left questioning what the “monster” was that drove everyone to suicide. One of the online theories is that the monster represented “mass hysterical contagion,” nowadays known as mass psychogenic illness (MPI), where a single individual suffers a psychogenic illness that spreads to