Fifty years ago – on Sept. 8, 1966 – TV viewers were transfixed by the appearance on screen of a green-hued, pointy-eared alien called Spock. But beneath the makeup, actor Leonard Nimoy fretted that this would be the end of his promising career.

“How can I play a character without emotion?” he asked his boss, Gene...

A January 2015 Pew Research Center study found an alarming chasm between the views of scientists and the views of the public. Here is just a sampling:

87 percent of scientists accept that...

It’s back-to-school time in the United States, and for countless children across the nation, it’s also time to get back into the school garden.

For centuries, educators and philosophers have argued that garden-based learning improves children’s intelligence and boosts their personal health. In recent...

Imagine you’re a detective working on a murder case. You have a body, but you believe it was moved from another location. Now what? There’s one unexpected tool you might use to follow up on this suspicion: forensic palynology. That’s...

In one of television’s more bizarre recent offerings, the History Channel show “Appalachian Outlaws” follows a band of West Virginians as they hunt rugged forests for American ginseng, a medicinal root worth...

On Sept. 1, officials in Florida reported that mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus had been found in Miami Beach. The Florida Department of Health reports 49 non-travel related cases of Zika. There are almost 2,700 cases of travel-associated cases in the continental U.S. Things are worse in the U.S. territories, where more than 14,000 locally...

Earlier this year, I wrote about a cache of bitter writings by Woody Guthrie that I had discovered while conducting research for a book on the balladeer.

The invectives were directed against a man Guthrie had...

It’s essential that the G20 leaders push for adoption of the World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) at the summit meeting in Hangzhou, China, in the face of growing anti-globalization forces. This agreement could be the tipping point to highlight the importance of global free trade and prevent a revival of true...

When it comes to their wages, McDonald’s workers around the world are not “Loving It” – and they haven’t been shy about expressing their discontent over the past four years.

But this Labor Day, America’s fast food workers can celebrate victories that have improved wages for...

This year marks the 135th Labor Day, a holiday that began with workers going on strike in New York City just to get a day off.

Workers no longer have to strike to enjoy the first Monday in September with their families, yet for many it’s no different from any other weekday, particularly for...