Notes

Childbirth may be the most painful thing a person can experience, but we have the technology to numb the pain.

Europe’s housing shortages are even worse than America’s. So why does nobody there talk about zoning?

Most flags used to be ugly. They were probably better that way.

Multiple myeloma is brutal. We may finally have a cure, but American regulatory inertia means that it was discovered abroad.

In the 1940s, scientists made a discovery now fundamental to biology: genes are encoded in DNA. The story involves bacteria, dead mice, and a kitchen cream separator.

How a grasshopper caused the 1873 panic, and why recessions are usually just bad luck.

What Americans take to be a borrowed European tradition turns out to be a national style all of their own.

How Works in Progress editor Ben Southwood learned to stop worrying and love democracy.

The traditional European apartment city has declined almost everywhere. There is one big exception.

A disease that was once a death sentence is increasingly treatable.

There is a closing window to stop driverless cars from creating omnigridlock.