Sam Kean

The pirate-turned-naturalist-turned-pirate-again inspired generations of British writers and scientists.

Calculating the automobile’s grisly impact on wildlife.

How an obsession with crustaceans guided the naturalist toward his most consequential insights.

A scientific dispute takes a violent, absurd turn.

In the waning days of World War II, a psychiatrist raced across Germany to uncover the harrowing abuses of Nazi doctors.

A crusading doctor’s stomach-churning efforts to beat back pellagra in the American South.

 Caroline Hampton and the forgotten origins of the first personal protective equipment.

In the 1920s a pioneering journalist summoned the might of American women to revive a Nobelist’s career.

Better photosynthesis, bomb-sniffing spinach, and that’s just the start of the ways plants are inspiring scientific innovation.

Foul-mouthed, heavy-drinking eccentric Harry R. Truman became a folk hero for refusing to evacuate his home in the months before Mount St. Helens erupted. Where did he go once it did?

To slow global warming scientists have tried schemes both simple and bizarre to bottle up cow burps.

A globe-hopping doctor and a weird amphibian produce a fast, inexpensive pregnancy test.

A molecule used in antifreeze may one day heal damaged spinal cords. 

Bizarre chemical structures are helping us better understand how our planet formed and, perhaps, where to find life elsewhere in the universe.

Is recycled wastewater too much to swallow?

Can a parasite in your cat’s litter box take control of your mind?

Genetic fishing expeditions are now extracting information from ancient human bones and providing a few surprises along the way.

Sometimes scientific discovery requires an unusual tool.

In space no one can hear ice scream! For more than 100 years scientists have been discovering and creating bizarre, exotic ices. Ices that can even burn a hole in you!

The chemistry of the universe may help explain the presence of life on Earth.