Main Page
Featured article
Articles
By Leslie Alan Horvitz
Earth Food Life Project
By Damon Orion
Local Peace Economy Project
Display More
We’re building a guide for everyday life, where experts will educate you about our world.
Author Spotlight
Ryan Mitchell shares his experience of the off-grid lifestyle.
Zahara Nabakooza is an advocate for children’s rights and climate action.
Brian Jonathan Garrett is an instructor of philosophy at Kwantlen Polytechnic University whose research explores the history of biology and its connections to metaphysics.
Nital Jethalal is a policy analyst and economist. He currently serves as strategist and policy advisor for the Plant Based Treaty and also oversees economics and policy research for Plant Based Data. Nital is also the president of VegTO and a director at the Toronto Vegetarian Food Bank.
Steve Taylor is a freelance journalist and the host of the podcast Breaking Green produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.
Bridget A. Lyons is a surfer, writer, editor, teacher, and creative consultant.
Gary Belan is the senior director of clean water supply at American Rivers.
Keith C. Heidorn was a meteorologist and climatologist.
Christine Jacobson is a cultural heritage professional.
Claire Hall is a historian of ancient Greek science and religion.
Guides
The Observatory’s '''Guide to Companion Animals and Human Responsibility''' explores the complex relationships between humans and the animals who live alongside us. It examines how pet ownership, breeding, and the global pet industry affect animal welfare, biodiversity, and ecosystem balance. From the ecological impact of free-roaming cats to ethical questions about domestication and dependency, the guide highlights both care and consequence. It also considers how human choices—from feeding practices to habitat encroachment—shape the lives of companion animals and wildlife alike. By bringing these perspectives together, the guide encourages more responsible, informed, and compassionate relationships with animals in human care.
editorReynard Loki
sourceEarth Food Life Project
areaConscious consumption means recognizing that everyday purchasing decisions shape the well-being of nonhuman animals, ecosystems, and human communities. It includes choosing foods that minimize harm, supporting ethical and sustainable production, avoiding products linked to environmental destruction, and rejecting exploitative labor practices. From humane food labels and plant-based alternatives to shade-grown coffee, eco-friendly wine, and reduced reliance on fast fashion and fossil fuels, each choice carries impact. The Observatory’s '''Guide to Conscious Consumption''' brings together practical tools and deeper context to help you make informed decisions that support your health, reduce harm, and contribute to a more just and sustainable world.
editorReynard Loki
sourceEarth Food Life Project
areaThe Observatory’s '''Guide to Wildlife and Ecosystem Protection''' explores the interconnected challenges facing wild animals and the habitats they depend on. It examines how human activities—such as deforestation, industrial agriculture, wildlife trade, pollution, and climate change—are driving species decline and ecosystem instability. By highlighting the importance of biodiversity, including the role of apex predators, healthy forests, and intact habitats in maintaining ecological balance, the guide connects conservation science with real-world threats and solutions, offering a clear understanding of how protecting wildlife also safeguards human health, prevents future pandemics, and supports resilient ecosystems.
editorReynard Loki
sourceEarth Food Life Project
areaThe '''Guide to Changing How We Relate to Animals''' explores how human perceptions, language, and belief systems shape our treatment of nonhuman life. It examines growing scientific understanding of animal intelligence, emotion, and social complexity, alongside philosophical and cultural frameworks that influence moral consideration. By questioning long-held assumptions about hierarchy, consciousness, and value, the guide highlights how attitudes toward animals are evolving. It also considers how shifts in awareness can lead to changes in behavior, policy, and everyday interactions. Together, these perspectives invite a more expansive, reflective, and ethically grounded relationship with the living world.
editorReynard Loki
sourceEarth Food Life Project
areaA true republican political system operates without a monarchy or concentrated political power in any office, branch, or individual. And a thriving republic observes the fundamental principles of equality, consensus, transparency, and reform (rather than institutional abandonment). If a republic strays from these values, political collapse can occur. This guide compares past republics, including the Roman and Venetian Republics, to republican states of today. By examining the successes and failures of early republics, we can gain a deeper understanding of the challenges in our current political environment.
editorJohn P. Ruehl
sourceHuman Bridges Project
areaHumans have long used language, writing, and storytelling to make sense of the world—and to shape how it is understood. Writing takes many forms, extending from literature and journalism to scholarship, personal reflection, and everyday communication. Together, language and writing help develop our critical thinking, awareness, and curiosity.
The '''Observatory Guide to Language Arts and Writing''' explores how language and storytelling shape the human mind, foster empathy, and serve as tools for understanding ourselves, connecting with others, imagining new possibilities, solving problems, and questioning the status quo. Drawing on literature, history, psychology, neuroscience, and the social sciences, the guide highlights how writing and narrative shape not only expression, but perception, meaning, and action.
editorDanica Tomber and Madeline VanArsdale
sourceThe Observatory
areaBirds are among the most diverse, intelligent, and ecologically important animals on Earth. They pollinate plants, disperse seeds, regulate insect populations, and inspire human cultures through their songs, migrations, and extraordinary adaptations. Yet many bird species also face unprecedented pressures from habitat loss, climate change, invasive species, pollution, and other human activities. This guide explores the science of birds, their relationships with people and ecosystems, and the many ways we can better understand and protect them.
editorReynard Loki
sourceEarth Food Life Project
areaThis guide explores the evolutionary origins of aesthetics in humans, otherwise known as bioaesthetics. Bioaesthetics is an interdisciplinary field that bridges biology, psychology, philosophy, and art to investigate aesthetic perception and how we perceive certain forms. Emerging research underlines the fact that our sense of beauty isn't purely cultural and has biological underpinnings.
editorIrina Matuzava
sourceHuman Bridges Project
areaThis guide explores the promise and perils of renewable energy. Can renewable energy achieve the emissions cuts we need to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis? Can we avoid an energy crisis if we abandon fossil fuels? What is the dark truth behind bioenergy? Is hydropower a real or false solution? Is the renewable energy transition succeeding or failing?
editorReynard Loki
sourceEarth Food Life Project
areaFood production shapes the health of ecosystems, communities, animals, and the climate. Yet many modern agricultural systems rely on practices that contribute to soil degradation, biodiversity loss, water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and animal suffering. As concerns about the environmental and social costs of industrial agriculture continue to grow, farmers, researchers, Indigenous communities, and advocates are developing and refining alternative approaches.
This guide explores a range of alternatives to industrial agriculture, including organic farming, small-scale farming, regenerative agriculture, carbon farming, veganic farming, Indigenous land stewardship practices, and emerging innovations such as agrivoltaics. Together, these approaches offer different pathways toward producing food while protecting ecosystems, improving soil health, supporting biodiversity, reducing environmental impacts, and building more resilient agricultural systems for future generations.
editorReynard Loki
sourceEarth Food Life Project
areaNew Additions
Prediction markets allow people to trade on the outcomes of real-world events, from elections and earnings reports to weather and war. Supporters see them as powerful forecasting tools, while critics warn they can encourage speculation, manipulation, and the financialization of uncertainty.
By: Leslie Alan Horvitz
Experimental archaeology proves Easter Island's moai were 'walked' to coastal platforms, confirming Rapa Nui oral traditions about their ancestral monuments.
By: Dig Labs Contributors
The surveyed dimensions of the Great Pyramid of Giza exhibit mathematical relationships that have fascinated scholars since the nineteenth century. The ratio of the pyramid's perimeter to its height closely approximates 2π (6.2832...), and the ratio of the slant height of a face to half the base length closely approximates the golden ratio φ (1.6180...). These relationships are mathematical consequences of each other: if the π ratio holds, the φ ratio follows (and vice versa), because the two constants are linked through the pyramid's specific geometry — a seked (slope) of approximately 5½ palms per cubit.
By: Dig Labs Contributors
Genomic evidence reveals Neanderthal extinction resulted from competitive exclusion, interbreeding, climatic stress, and inbreeding in tiny populations.
By: Dig Labs Contributors
The Fourth Dynasty of Egypt's Old Kingdom (c. 2613–2494 BCE) produced the most massive and precisely constructed stone monuments in human history. Within approximately 120 years, three generations of pharaohs — Sneferu, Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure — erected the Giza pyramid complex and the Dahshur monuments, consuming an estimated 25 million tonnes of stone. Yet by the Fifth Dynasty, pyramid construction had already diminished dramatically in scale, and by the end of the Sixth Dynasty, it had effectively ceased. No subsequent Egyptian civilization — not the Middle Kingdom, not the New Kingdom at the height of its imperial power — attempted to replicate the Giza achievement. Understanding why requires integrating evidence from political economy, environmental history, administrative records, and architectural analysis.
By: Dig Labs Contributors
The stone spheres of the Diquís Delta in southern Costa Rica constitute one of the most visually arresting and least understood monumental traditions in precolumbian Mesoamerica and lower Central America. Numbering over 300 documented examples, these near-perfectly spherical objects range from a few centimetres to over two metres in diameter, with the largest specimens weighing approximately 16 tonnes. They were produced by peoples ancestral to the modern Boruca and other Chibchan-speaking groups, primarily during the Aguas Buenas (300–800 CE) and Chiriquí (800–1550 CE) periods. Four archaeological sites containing stone spheres — Finca 6, Batambal, El Silencio, and Grijalba-2 — were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2014.
By: Dig Labs Contributors
The base platform of the Great Pyramid of Giza is level to within approximately 2.1 centimetres (5/8 of an inch) across its entire 230-metre perimeter — a relative precision of approximately 0.009 per cent. This achievement, on a foundation that covers an area of approximately 5.3 hectares (13 acres), is remarkable by any standard: maintaining such flatness over such an area required either an extraordinary levelling instrument or an extraordinary levelling method applied with extraordinary patience. The builders had neither modern laser levels nor precision spirit levels; they accomplished this feat with water, string, and careful observation.
By: Dig Labs Contributors
The Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE) are the hypothetical speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, the reconstructed ancestor of the Indo-European language family — the world's largest, encompassing languages spoken by nearly half the global population, from Hindi and Bengali to English, Spanish, Russian, and Greek. The PIE themselves left no written records; their existence is inferred entirely from the systematic comparison of their descendant languages, supplemented in recent decades by archaeological evidence and, most decisively, by ancient DNA analysis.
By: Dig Labs Contributors
Stonehenge stands as England's most iconic prehistoric enigma, a circle of massive sarsen stones and smaller bluestones that has puzzled observers for millennia
By: Dig Labs Contributors
The Colossus of Rhodes, a monumental bronze statue of the sun god Helios erected c. 280 BCE and toppled by earthquake c. 226 BCE, presents a distinctive archaeological problem: the complete disappearance of an enormous quantity of worked bronze from the historical and material record. Ancient sources attest to the statue's continued presence in ruins on Rhodes for centuries after its collapse, but no physical trace of the bronze has ever been identified. The traditional account of its removal by Arab forces in 653/654 CE — mediated through Theophanes the Confessor's early 9th-century chronicle — has been substantially challenged by recent scholarship.
By: Dig Labs Contributors
Classics
“''The Shame of the Cities'' is a book written by American author Lincoln Steffens. Published in 1904, it is a collection of articles which Steffens had written for ''McClure’s Magazine''. It reports on the workings of corrupt political machines in several major cities in the United States, along with a few efforts to combat them. It is considered one of several early major pieces of muckraking journalism, but Steffens later claimed that the work made him ‘the first muckraker.’” (Source: Wikipedia)
By: Lincoln Steffens
The famous novel about government and business corruption in the early 20th century by muckraker author Upton Sinclair.
From Wikisource:
- “''The Jungle'' is a 1906 novel written by author and socialist journalist Upton Sinclair. It was written about the corruption of the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century. The novel depicts in harsh tones the poverty, absence of social programs, unpleasant living and working conditions, and hopelessness prevalent among the ‘have-nots,’ which is contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption on the part of the ‘haves.’”
By: Upton Sinclair
This article on "the woman question" of the right for American women* to vote appeared in Popular Science Monthly, Volume 49, in June 1896. Two months later, Popular Science Monthly's editors attacked Tweedy's argument in an Editor's Table section titled "Women and Politics," reproduced below for historical context depicting the attitude of most men (and some women) of Tweedy's time:
"The Monthly has lately given place to two articles on the subject of the demand which is now being made by some women on behalf of their sex to be allowed to participate in political life on a footing of perfect equality with men. One of our contributors [George F. Talbot, 'The Political Rights and Duties of Women'] has tried to show cause why the demand should not be granted, taking the ground that the change would be injurious to society as a whole and particularly injurious to the female sex. The other [Tweedy, below] treats the arguments of the first with scorn, and, if we are not mistaken, betrays not a little of that 'antagonism of the sexes' which nevertheless she declares to be 'unnatural and vicious.' The question is one which ought to be discussed with complete dispassionateness; and we think that on this score there was no fault to find with the earlier of the two contributions, that by Mr. George F. Talbot, in our May number."
The editors go on to dismiss Tweedy's argument because "As long as men alone do the voting, they are supposed to represent the non-voting sex. Every man has or has had a mother, most have one or more sisters, and a very large proportion have wives. Every man's vote, therefore, … ought to express his consciousness of and respect for the family tie." They continue, "What is mainly needed, in our opinion, is the deepening of the sense of trusteeship in men." Nevertheless, the "women agitators," described below by Tweedy, fought on until women won the right to vote with the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment.
✲ ''It should be noted that the public debate at the time often considered the voting rights of only white women. While women gained the vote in 1920 with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, it was not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the right to vote for Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color was guaranteed.''By: Alice B. Tweedy
In this memoir, Frederick Douglass chronicles life as an enslaved boy in the American South, his eventual escape, and his new beginnings as a free man and abolitionist.
''Note: This historical memoir may include outdated and offensive language.''
By: Frederick Douglass
From Wikisource:
- “''Ten Days in a Mad-House'' is a book written by newspaper reporter Nellie Bly and published by Norman Munro in New York City in 1887. The book comprised Blyʼs reportage for the New York World while on an undercover assignment in which she feigned insanity to investigate reports of brutality and neglect at the Womenʼs Lunatic Asylum on Blackwellʼs Island.”
By: Nellie Bly
From Wikipedia:
- “''A Voice from the South: By a Black Woman of the South'' is the first book by American author, educator, and activist Anna J. Cooper. First published in 1892, the book is widely viewed as one of the first articulations of Black feminism. The book is divided into two parts, ‘Soprano Obligato’ and ‘Tutti Ad Libitum.’ Each section contains four individual essays. This book led to the term ‘Cooperian’ being coined when speaking about Anna J. Cooper. It is considered one of the first, full-length Black feminist texts.”
- '''Overview'''
- “''A Voice from the South'' compiles a series of essays that touched on a variety of topics, such as race and racism, gender, the socioeconomic realities of Black families, and the administration of the Episcopal Church.”
- “The book advanced a vision of self-determination through education and social uplift for African-American women. Its central thesis was that the educational, moral, and spiritual progress of Black women would improve the general standing of the entire African-American community. She says that the violent natures of men often run counter to the goals of higher education, so it is important to foster more female intellectuals because they will bring more elegance to education. She noted Black women whose accomplishments could rival those of men, including Phillis Wheatley, Sojourner Truth, Fanny Jackson Coppin, and Edmonia Lewis. Cooper advanced the view that it was the duty of educated and successful Black women to support their underprivileged peers in achieving their goals. Through this view Cooper’s style was deemed ‘Cooperian,’ as a direct comparison to other male canonical theorists. …”
- “''A Voice from the South'' was published during a period that saw a burst of intellectual publications by Black women. Cooper’s book was published the same year as Lucy Delaney’s ''From the Darkness Cometh the Light; or, Struggles for Freedom'', Ida B. Wells’s ''Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases'', and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper’s ''Iola Leroy; or, Shadows Uplifted''.”
By: Anna J. Cooper
From Wikipedia:
- “''Woman in the Nineteenth Century'' is a book by American journalist, editor, and women’s rights advocate Margaret Fuller. Originally published in July 1843 in The Dial magazine as ‘The Great Lawsuit. Man versus Men. Woman versus Women,’ it was later expanded and republished in book form in 1845.”
- “The basis for Fuller’s essay is the idea that man will rightfully inherit the earth when he becomes an elevated being, understanding of divine love. There have been periods in time when the world was more awake to this love, but people are sleeping now; however, everyone has the power to become enlightened. Man cannot now find perfection because he is still burdened with selfish desires, but Fuller is optimistic and says that we are on the verge of a new awakening. She claims that in the past man, like Orpheus for Eurydice, has always called out for woman, but soon will come the time when women will call for men, when they will be equals and share divine love.”
By: S. Margaret Fuller
This is a speech by Frederick Douglass given on Monday, July 5, 1852, in Rochester, New York. The oration was published as a pamphlet the same year. Annotations were provided by the Wikisource community.
By: Frederick Douglass
A survivor’s perspective on what it was like to be on the ''Titanic'' as it sank, with detailed accountings of his and other passengers’ accounts.
By: Archibald Gracie IV
This 1847 memoir was written by prominent activist and writer William Wells Brown to support the abolitionist movement. It chronicles Brown’s cruel treatment as an enslaved man, the horrors that he witnessed, and his multiple escape attempts for freedom.
''Note: This book is part of a historical collection and may include offensive language.''
By: William Wells Brown