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We’re building a guide for everyday life, where experts will educate you about our world.
Author Spotlight
Ann Leslie Davis is an award-winning freelance journalist.
Richard D. Wolff is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, in New York.
Mathilde Lépine is a co-founder of Prehistory Travel, which educates people of all ages on topics relating to human prehistory.
David M. Carballo is a professor of archaeology, anthropology, and Latin American studies at Boston University.
Gigi Kellett is a managing director for Corporate Accountability.
Brittany Michelson is an animal rights activist, writer and former teacher.
Andrew Califf is an archaeologist and anthropologist with a special interest in environmental conservation and Indigenous rights.
Dr. Harriet Fraad is a mental health counselor and hypnotherapist whose writing and multimedia programs cover the interactions between global capitalism and personal life in the United States.
Matthew Goodman is a New York Times–bestselling author of five books, including ''The City Game'' and ''Eighty Days'', whose work has appeared in the ''Wall Street Journal'' and ''Harvard Review''.
Madeline VanArsdale is a linguist, writer, and editor.
Guides
Advertising, marketing, and branding shape far more than what we buy. They influence what captures our attention, how we evaluate products and ideas, and even how we understand ourselves and the world around us. From the psychology of persuasion to the ethics of corporate messaging, these forces are woven into nearly every aspect of modern life.
editorThis guide explores how advertising and marketing work, why certain messages resonate, how brands build trust—or exploit it—and how consumers can better recognize the techniques used to influence their decisions. Along the way, it examines the commercialization of culture, the power of labels and narratives, and the societal consequences of persuasive communication.
Whether you're interested in media, psychology, business, ethics, or simply becoming a more informed consumer, these articles offer a deeper understanding of the systems that shape contemporary consumer culture.Reynard Loki
sourceThe Observatory
areaThe 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
areaThis guide will take you through examples of the regenerative, moneyless economy that is sometimes called “collaborative consumption.” The moneyless, sharing-based economy creates the opportunity to opt out of the mentality of disposability and the idea that “more is better,” both of which many of us are bombarded with from birth. The regenerative, moneyless economy provides an avenue for anyone to move away from the hoarding nightmare that has led to over-full garages and seldom-visited storage sheds, continent-sized trash islands, and enormous heaps of human waste. It does this by way of peer-to-peer systems set up for people to rent or borrow goods rather than buy and own them individually. It involves collaborative systems that supply people with the things they need, when they need them.
editorApril M. Short
sourceLocal Peace Economy Project
areaWhy do some authors pretend to be someone they are not? Why do they claim experiences that they don’t have? What drives them to create texts and claim that they are ancient? By examining some examples of literary fraud from the modern era, we can gain insight not only into a fraudulent writer’s perspective, but also into readers’ expectations, publishing practices, and what kind of story a culture values.
editorKatherine Dolan
sourceThe Observatory
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
areaWe use language every day—from spoken and signed words to written communication and body gestures—but how often do we pause to consider what drives it beneath the surface? Linguistics, the scientific study of language, seeks to answer this question by examining how language is acquired, how it functions, how it changes over time, and how it connects to both human evolution and society. Its insights reach far beyond the classroom, shaping our understanding of education, politics, technology, identity, and culture.
editorThis '''Guide to Linguistics: The Science of Language''' explores how language both shapes and is shaped by our experiences, values, and identities. Through a diverse collection of essays, it invites readers to rethink the language they use and the assumptions they make about others based on how they speak. It also examines the power dynamics embedded in language—how words can reflect, reinforce, or challenge social hierarchies.
As you move through the guide, consider the contexts in which language is used. Ask: Who is speaking? Where, when, and why? These questions open the door to a more nuanced understanding of what language is, how it functions, and how it continues to evolve. Whether you are a student, a lifelong learner, or simply curious about the forces shaping everyday communication, this guide offers a deeper look at the many dimensions of language.Danica Tomber and Madeline VanArsdale
sourceThe Observatory
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
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
areaHuman ecology begins in the most intimate corners of our lives. Every breath we take, every meal shared, every relationship nurtured within a neighborhood depends on the health of the living environments around us. Human ecology helps us see how daily choices are woven into larger social and ecological systems—and how those systems, in turn, shape our bodies, minds, and spirits. It invites us to consider both our material needs—food, water, shelter—and our psychosocial needs—belonging, purpose, and agency—and to understand how inseparably they are linked.
editorEach lens in this Guide encourages us to notice relationships: between people, communities, and the natural world. It examines how governance can support quality of life, how neighborhoods grow and adapt, how education shapes our understanding of one another, and how cultures share resources and respond to change. The Guide offers practical ways to live more gently—and more courageously—with one another and with the planet, showing that the patterns we create carry consequences across places and generations.
At its core, human ecology is about caring for ourselves, the communities that shape us, and the ecosystems that sustain every moment of life. When society teaches that human well-being and environmental health are part of the same story, a new possibility emerges: that future generations may inherit not only knowledge, but wiser, more balanced ways of living on Earth.Sandra Ericson
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
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
This article on the German philosopher [[wikipedia:Johann_Gottlieb_Fichte
By: Ellen Bliss Talbot
“''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 [[wikipedia:McClure's
By: Lincoln Steffens
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
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
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 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
From [[wikipedia:Woman_in_the_Nineteenth_Century
By: S. Margaret Fuller
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
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