Feature Channels: History

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Professor Étienne Ghys, Permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences and Emeritus Research Director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), delivered a thought-provoking HKIAS Distinguished Lecture on "Soccer Balls: Their History, Geometries, and Aerodynamics" on 30 October 2024 at City University of Hong Kong. The event, facilitated by Professor Neil Chada from the Department of Mathematics, attracted a diverse audience of academics and students. Notably, Ms Camélia Aissat, Deputy Consul of Education and Culture and Mr Louis Doucet, Head of Press and Communication from the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong & Macau, also showed keen interest and attended the lecture.

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The Path to Paralysis: How American Politics Became Nasty, Dysfunctional, and a Threat to the Republic, released in mid-October by Anthem Press, examines the changes in political culture that have moved the United States from The Great Society to the U.S. Capitol Insurrection in less than 60 years. Polarization and toxicity are now common in a country that is 50/50 red/blue, and “compromise” is considered a dirty word.

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Researchers' analysis of “found” lidar data from a completely unstudied corner of the Maya civilization revealed countless settlements that archaeologists never knew about. The study demonstrates, once and for all, that there’s still plenty of the Maya world to uncover.

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The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has debuted a new educational website that chronicles the evolution of the City of Little Rock through more than a century of history. Funded by two grants totaling more than $375,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Mapping Little Rock History project allows users to explore key moments in the city's expansion.

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Newly appointed geography professor Benjamin Gwinneth uses innovative geochemical methods, such as measuring fecal molecules, to understand how climate variability shaped ancient populations.

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute will feature "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" in its 2025 spring exhibition, exploring the history and cultural significance of Black dandyism. ...

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Archaeological surveys led by scientists at Washington University in St. Louis suggest that coastal and underwater cave sites in southern Sicily contain important new clues about the path and fate of early human migrants to the island.

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An Atikamekw First Nation community is collaborating with UdeM researchers to create a digital platform to pass on ancestral knowledge about the land.

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In this episode of Curious by Nature, we sat down with Dr. Elise Wang, an assistant professor at Cal State University, Fullerton, and a medievalist who specialized in the literature, history, and lore of the medieval period. Dr. Wang discussed her work teaching early literature courses and her research into conspiracy theories, examining them as narratives.

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Fifty years ago—on November 24, 1974—only a few years after humans’ first steps on the moon, a young paleoanthropologist, Donald Johanson, walking in the dusty landscape of the Afar Rift Valley of Ethiopia discovered the first human ancestor fossil who reliably walked upright on two feet—“Lucy.”

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A new, wide-ranging exploration of human remains casts doubt on a long-standing theory in archaeology known as the Kurgan hypothesis—which, among other claims, suggests that humans first domesticated horses as early as the fourth millennium B.C.

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The WCS Library and Archives, based at the Bronx Zoo, released its newly digitized Department of Tropical Research (DTR) Film Collection. The project was funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources’ (CLIR) Recordings at Risk grant, supported by the Mellon Foundation.

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The Constitution turns 237 today. ...

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The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has started a community archaeology project on campus, inviting local residents to join forces with students and faculty in uncovering the rich history of the area.

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When Japanese samurai repelled the Mongols, their victories were attributed to typhoons whipped up by divine forces. Now, Ph.D. candidate Jérémy Le Blanc-Gauthier is taking a fresh look at the legend.

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The places we grew up leave indelible marks on us, locked in the atoms of the toughest structures in our bodies. Subtle differences in tooth chemistry could help determine the identity of fallen soldiers and other human remains—if we can learn to read that history.

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Text, images, and video: https://chandra.si.edu/photo/2024/sonify9/ A quarter of a century ago, NASA released the “first light” images from the agency’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This introduction to the world of Chandra’s high-resolution X-ray imaging capabilities included an unprecedented view of Cassiopeia A, the remains of an exploded star located about 11,000 light-years from Earth. Over the years, Chandra’s views of Cassiopeia A have become some of the telescope’s best-known images. To mark the anniversary of this milestone, new sonifications of three images — including Cassiopeia A (Cas A) — are being released. Sonification is a process that translates astronomical data into sound, similar to how digital data are more routinely turned into images. This translation process preserves the science of the data from its original digital state but provides an alternative pathway to experiencing the data.

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A research team conducted a comprehensive analysis of phylogenetic relationships among Australian citrus species and 13 international accessions, shedding light on their genetic diversity and evolutionary history.

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The universe may seem static, only capable of being captured in still frames, but that is far from the truth. It is actually ever-changing, just not on timescales clearly visible to humans. NASA’s upcoming Roman Space Telescope will bridge this gap in time, opening the way to the dynamic universe.

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Researchers have received a $650,000 NSF grant to investigate the cultural dimensions of ecological instability by studying the experiences of vulnerable communities in South Florida and Puerto Rico. Using ethnography, they will capture the nuanced ways in which communities are responding to ecological disruptions. Understanding how cultures adapt to ecological instability can provide valuable insights for communities worldwide, including those in the Caribbean. By documenting and analyzing these responses, researchers can develop and refine strategies to enhance collective survival.