They are science. They are war paint on humanity’s countenance as we combat our great eternal enemy: the mosquito. But Carson’s most visionary proposition, decades ahead of science, was the development of biological controls that would curtail the reproduction of…
With an eye to the limitation of these words — of all words — as “the primary and somehow insignificant expression of a fulfillment,” Barthes adds with a conspiratorial wink: This renders the exchange of I love you’s — that…
The day ends.The night falls.And in between…there is the blue hour. But despite Earth’s distinction as the Solar System’s “Pale Blue Dot,” this planetary blueness is only a perceptual phenomenon arising from how our particular atmosphere, with its particular chemistry,…
Look dearest Ethel…. Please live 50 years at least; for now I’ve formed this limpet childish attachment it can’t but be part of my simple anatomy for ever — wanting Ethel — I say, live, live, and let me fasten…
The study of Shells, or testaceous animals, is a branch of natural history which, although not greatly useful to the mechanical arts, or the human economy, is, nevertheless, by the beauty of the subjects it comprises, most admirably adapted to…
In the 1950s, Rai Weiss fell in love with a pianist, fell in love with his lover’s passion for music, and went on to invent the colossal instrument that captured the sound of spacetime, revolutionizing our understanding of the universe…
As word of this living marvel spreads throughout the village and beyond, people make pilgrimages from all over the world — to see her, to touch her, to ask the well-meaning, rude questions about whether her parents have insured her…
Thinking lately about what it means to have the right heart, which intimates the question of what it means to tend to one’s own heart rightly, I was reminded of a passage from what may be the loveliest, truest, most…
The Snail with the Right Heart, out on February 2, came alive thanks to the invaluable stewardship of my longtime friend, neighbor, and collaborator Claudia Zoe Bedrick — the one-woman powerhouse behind Brooklyn-based independent children’s publisher Enchanted Lion. Illustrations by…
For more conversation starters, visit QUEST‘s complete discussion guide. The film includes remarks from President Obama after a mass shooting in which he notes that no matter where the violence occurs, “these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods; these children are our…