That's Interesting

  • NPR: Chubb Insurance no longer underwriting coal industry

    “Chubb insurance says it will no longer underwrite coal-fired power plants, the first major U.S. insurer to do so. It’s a big victory for a campaign that’s been pressuring the industry over climate change.”

    Read More
  • NPR Planet Money: The Problem With Banning Plastic Bags

    “For decades, plastic bags have been staples at grocery stores. They also clog drains, cause floods, litter landscapes and kill wildlife. Consequently, a growing number of cities and counties have passed laws that ban or tax plastic bags in the past ten years. But as our colleague Greg Rosalsky explored in a recent Planet Money newsletter, banning plastic bags may be worse for the environment.”

    Read More
  • David Rumsey Map Collection

    The Rumsey Collection contains over 91,000 images spanning five centuries of cartography and is available to access digitally online for free.

    Read More
  • North Korea: The Grand Tour

    ‘Photographs of ordinary and yet extraordinary life in the last communist state from an ideological, political and cultural perspective’

    Read More
  • A Photo Journey Across Africa With Ostinato Records

    ‘For the last three years, Ostinato Records has been reissuing lost classics of African music. Their journeys take them across the continent, tracking down the original artists via a network of tips and personal connections. Here, label founder Vik Sohonie brings us along for the journey, traveling to cassette shops and recording studios in search of rare gems.’

    Read More
  • Recreating ancient artifacts may be the future of archaeology

    “Have you ever heard of an archaeologist who burns, hammers or smashes artifacts? That’s what Metin Eren does, except it’s with replicas. Eren is a rising star in the field of experimental archaeology. In his lab at Kent State University, he tests recreations of early stone tools, trying to understand their purpose and design–and what those meant for human development.”

    Read More
  • A Brief History of Vox: The Sound of the British Invasion

    ‘In the mid-1960s, young groups like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Yardbirds led the British Invasion, in which blues-rich rock ’n’ roll became the dominant mode of expression. While each group had its own idiosyncratic slant on the music, they all shared a powerful weapon: amplification courtesy of Vox.’

    Read More
  • A visual journey through communist-era interiors

    Edifice by Polish photographer Karol Palka is a visual journey through the interiors of communist-era buildings in Poland, Slovakia and East Germany.

    Read More
  • The Impossibly Cool Album Covers of Blue Note Records: Meet the Creative Team Behind These Iconic Designs

    The album covers of Blue Note Records included designs for John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Lou Donaldson.

    The link includes an embedded youtube video from Vox Earworm on ‘The Greatest Album Covers of Jazz’.

    Read More
  • Leonardo da Vinci’s Earliest Notebooks Now Digitized

    “Famous worldwide as the painter of such masterpieces as the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) is also renowned for his notebooks in which he recorded his thoughts and inventions. Five of these fascinating notebooks, bound into three small volumes, have been in our collection since 1876 when they were bequeathed to the Museum by John Forster.”

    Read More
  • Select Topics

Show All