Category Archives: Responses to Change

Johns Hopkins researchers say they’ve unlocked key to cancer metastasis and how to slow it

Cancer cells are our own cells, changed to reproduce rapidly. A young medical researcher figured out what triggers the life-threatening change that spreads cancer cells throughout the body.

How Writing Changed the World

It’s no exaggeration to say that the advent of writing changed everything for humans. Here’s a look at some of the key shifts in history that resulted from those first scratches on clay tablets.

Arctic 2.0: What Happens After All the Ice Goes?

As global climate change increases temperatures at the poles, researchers consider the likely effects of all that extra liquid water.

The ‘America effect’: How immigrants fall crazy in love

This opinion piece, written in 2012, explores how moving to the United States changed the views of one immigrant family.

Birdbrain Breakthrough

It was once thought that we developed all of the brain cells we would ever have in the womb. However, that belief has been upended, in part through the study of birds.

Four Pulitzer-winning takes on the rise of Adolf Hitler

Read four articles written during the 1930s for a glimpse of how a dictator’s growing power was perceived at the time.

Scientists just accidentally discovered a process that turns CO2 directly into ethanol

Excess carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere is causing extinctions, killing coral reefs, and feeding global warming. Scientists recently stumbled onto a remarkably simple solution.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

Since the beginning of human history, art has reflected the responses of people to their lives and the changing world around them. Explore this comprehensive timeline, which places examples of art through the ages in historical and geographic context.

Human Biological Adaptability

A college professor outlines the major ways humans respond to environmental and cultural change.

Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ Turns 100

Franz Kafka’s disturbing novella about how a family responds to a drastic change still influences writers over a century after its first publication.

Earth’s Magnetic Field Flip Could Happen Sooner Than Expected

If there’s one thing you can count on, it’s that north is north, right? Not so fast.

100 years ago, ‘The Rite of Spring’ incited a riot in a Paris theater

The years just before World War I marked a turning point in the arts, a shift from the romantic to the modern. Learn how a groundbreaking ballet’s modernity shocked and angered the audience at its premier.

Power from the people: Rural Electrification brought more than lights

Less than a century ago, most rural communities in the United States lacked electricity. View artifacts that capture the magnitude of change achieved by the Rural Electrification Administration starting in the 1930s.

Rising seas threaten to drown important mangrove forests, unless we intervene

Global climate change is resulting in rising sea levels, which could in turn speed up the change by depriving the planet of a crucial carbon sink.

A finish line proposal was ‘perfect’ for this Boston Marathon bombing survivor

In 2013, a terrorist attack at the finish line of the Boston Marathon changed hundreds of lives in an instant. Learn about one survivor’s happy return to the bombing site.

McKinley vs. Denali: Who Decides Names on a Map?

For a century, the tallest mountain in North America was officially known by the name of the 25th U. S. President. In 2015, the official designation reverted to what most Alaskans already called it.

Van Gogh and the decision that changed art history

Vincent Van Gogh turned his failure as a rural preacher into the art that makes him revered as an innovator today.

Post-Traumatic Stress’s Surprisingly Positive Flip Side

Soldiers and victims of tragedies often struggle to cope with the trauma they have endured. But some researchers are finding truth in the old saying that what doesn’t kill someone makes him or her stronger.