Featured articles
From The Observatory
Featured Articles
From the deserts of California to the forests of Belgium, these iconic music festivals showcase the power of sound to bridge cultures, celebrate creativity, and build unforgettable global communities.
True justice begins at birth, not in systems that mask inequality with the language of freedom and hide civil erasure behind institutional power.
By: Carter Dillard and Zahara Nabakooza
Many U.S. veterans are suffering from asbestos-related illnesses due to past military exposure, highlighting the urgent need for a national asbestos-exposure registry to improve early detection, diagnosis, and access to VA benefits.
By: Jonathan Sharp
Solitary confinement began as a Quaker-inspired experiment in silence and moral reform in early American prisons, but over time its redemptive intent gave way to harsh, isolating punishment that remains in use today.
By: Jane Brox
From seasonal cycles and reincarnation to cosmic destruction and rebirth, ancient Greek and Roman philosophers developed competing theories of how time repeats—and what that repetition means for human life.
By: Claire Hall
Broken child welfare policies have undermined political systems and destroyed the planetary ecosystem.
By: Robin Scher
The #LetUsBreathe Collective offers a hub for art, activism, and healing to those impacted by mass incarceration.
By: Damon Orion
The 42 known species of the genus Rafflesia are under threat due to deforestation and habitat destruction.
In the early 1900s, a St. Louis woman claimed a long-dead Puritan spirit dictated novels, poems, and plays through a Ouija board, raising enduring questions about authorship, spiritualism, automatic writing, and literary history.
By: Ed Simon
Statements about impact and responsibility rely on underlying assumptions that shape how outcomes are defined and interpreted.
By: Reynard Loki
