Books
In a new book called Cosmigraphics: Picturing Space Through Time, published this month by Abrams, Michael Benson examines over a thousand years of mapping the great beyond.
Art
In the most hellish penal colony of Tasmania, a convict named William Buelow Gould painted beautiful watercolors of the sea creatures that washed up on the shores.
Books
The Victorian fascination with natural history combined with affordable book publishing led to some comely titles in elegant binding.
Art
DULUTH, Minn. — It was a magnificent sight when it first launched. Floating 20 feet from shore, Sean Connaughty’s “Ark of the Anthropocene” seemed to glow on the dark waves of Lake Superior, drawing on real science, Biblical narrative, and science fiction all at once.
Art
The future of space flight may be founded on the traditions of art.
Art
Extraplanetary travel has seemed tantalizingly close ever since the first moon landing over 45 years ago. Alas, we're no closer to spending our summer holidays riding rovers on the lunar craters, and even with the advent of private space travel like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX it's astronomically una
Art
When it was published in 1543, Andreas Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica changed anatomical study with its elegant illustrations of the interior of the human body.
Art
Tapeworms, leeches, lice, bedbugs, fleas, and ticks — the litany of Marcus DeSieno's photographic subjects is enough to cause a few paranoid itches
Art
Back in the 1930s, an electrical engineer from Nebraska, working at MIT, developed the first "strobe" flash for photography, changing the way motion is documented.
Art
A curious thing about medical collections is how dehumanizing they can be.
News
That color and smell have a sensory connection is long-established, but there's debate about whether associating the smell of strawberries with red or smoke with black is something structured in our brains, based in language, or resulting from experience.
News
We've all heard about art's psychological and physiological effects. Researchers have found, for instance, that a lunchtime jaunt to an art gallery can reduce work-related stress, and that creating art might even help cancer patients. But what about art's neurological impact — can picking up a paint