Science
The Science of Sleep
Sleep is weird. We spend about a third of our lives asleep. Gerbils and lions do it 13 hours a day. Elephants average only 3.5 hours. Birds and dolphins only sleep with half their brain at a time, so they Read more
History
The pandemics of World War I
Subtitle: Why You Should Always Get Your Flu Shot In the year 1918, the entire world caught influenza. It was a particularly virulent strain, and thanks to troop movements in WWI it became the first recorded global pandemic. A lot Read more
History
Alcohol in early America
The short version: from colonial times until the mid-1800’s, white America was drunk. Really drunk. Like, most of the time, especially the men. But even the women and children made our modern-day party animals look like lightweights in comparison. The Read more
History
The Empire of Death, and Heavenly Bodies
Let’s talk about death. Humans have done lots of odd things to human remains. The Catholic church in the Middle Ages did some spectacularly morbid things with the skeletons of the diseased, creating whole death cults, bizarre works of art, and Read more
History
The Victorian Internet
In the days of traveling by horse and sailing ships, it could take months to get a message to someone. You’d send a letter, and it may or may not arrive due to bandits and shipwrecks and other perils, and Read more
Psychology
The Will to Meaning
I was just looking through my collection of quotes (I read a lot of ebooks, and highlight/annotate them like crazy) and thought I would share my favorite psychological paradigm: existential analysis. I get to ramble about something I love, and Read more
History
Our Filthy Past
People who romanticize the past annoy me. Because, frankly, the past was smelly and dirty and kind of awful. Yes, I hear some of you say. Of course it was. But do you have any idea exactly how filthy things Read more
Uncategorized
Welcome!
A friend suggested I start blogging about things I’ve read. I read a lot of weird non-fiction, mostly histories and science texts. I’ve read histories of milk, the periodic table, the American highway system, and hundreds more. Standard political and Read more