Why do onion fumes make us cry? The answer involves volatile sulfur compounds, an enzyme, your eyes’ natural defense system, and a chemical called syn-propanethial-S-oxide — and it is more interesting than you’d expect.
Phantom Kangaroos: The Animals That Should Not Be Here | Close Reading
Phantom kangaroos — sightings of kangaroos and wallabies far outside their native range in Australia — have been reported across the United States, Europe, and beyond for over a century. Nobody has a satisfying explanation.
The Physics of Rainbows: Why the Sky Makes Prisms After Rain | Close Reading
The physics of rainbows — refraction, reflection, and the dispersion of light — is one of the most beautiful demonstrations of optical science in the natural world, hiding in plain sight above every rainy sky.
The Problem of Evil: Philosophy’s Most Uncomfortable Question | Close Reading
The problem of evil is the most challenging argument against the existence of a benevolent God — and engaging seriously with it reveals something profound about the nature of suffering, free will, and moral responsibility.
Only Humans Use Tools? Tell That to the Crows. | Close Reading
The idea that humans are the only animals that use tools is one of the most thoroughly debunked myths in biology — and what the evidence reveals instead is more humbling, more fascinating, and more philosophically provocative.
The Plague of Justinian: When a Pandemic Changed the Ancient World | Close Reading
The Plague of Justinian was the first pandemic in recorded history — and its impact on the Byzantine Empire, the Mediterranean world, and the trajectory of Western civilization was devastating and lasting.
Loki: The God Who Was Never Just One Thing | Close Reading
The Norse myth of Loki is a masterclass in moral complexity — a god who was simultaneously indispensable and catastrophic, whose trickery and transformation shaped the fate of all the gods and ultimately the world.
Close Reading | Why Do We Yawn? The Science Behind Your Most Contagious Habit
Introduction You probably just yawned, or felt the urge to, simply because you are about to read an article about yawning. This is not a coincidence, and it is not a sign of boredom — it is a genuinely remarkable phenomenon that scientists have only partially...
Close Reading | Bryce Laspisa: The Disappearance That Still Doesn’t Add Up
The disappearance of Bryce Laspisa in 2013 is one of the most puzzling and heartbreaking unsolved cases in recent American history — a college student who vanished after a strange road trip, leaving behind more questions than answers.
Close Reading | Stem Cells: The Body’s Blank Slate and the Science of Possibility
Stem cells are the body’s most remarkable blank slates — cells with the potential to become almost anything. Understanding them unlocks one of the most exciting frontiers in modern medicine.
Recent Posts
Audacity — The Beautiful Nerve to Try
Audacity is the word for the move that shouldn’t work but might — for the pitch that’s too big, the ask that’s too much, the step that everyone around you says is a step too far. In this episode, we celebrate the beautiful nerve of the audacious.
A Vicious Cycle — The Loop That Feeds Itself and How to Step Out
You’ve probably been in one. The problem creates the condition that reinforces the problem. Round and round, each turn tightening the spiral. ‘A vicious cycle’ is one of the most precise expressions in English for a particular kind of trap — and this episode explores both what makes cycles vicious and what it takes to break them.
Impediment — On the Strange Gifts Hidden in Obstacles
An impediment is something in your way. It slows you down, blocks you, makes the path harder. But in this episode, we ask the more interesting question: what if the impediment is also part of the path?
Uncharted Waters — The Map Ends Here. What Now?
There’s a specific kind of vertigo that comes with doing something no one has done before — or something no map has prepared you for. ‘Uncharted waters’ is an expression born from the age of exploration, and it speaks directly to one of the most human experiences there is: the moment when the known world runs out.
A History of Sex as a Business 01 | In the Beginning: Sex, Temples, and the First Economies
Tracing the earliest known traces of commercial sex in ancient Mesopotamia and beyond, examining the hotly contested theory of sacred prostitution, the economic realities of the ancient world, and what the archaeological record actually tells us.
Heretical — The Word for Ideas That Are Too New to Be Safe
Every idea we now take for granted was once heretical. In this episode, we explore the word for dangerous thinking — and ask what heretical ideas of today might be the common sense of tomorrow.