Between 1950 and 1980, an estimated 2 million people fled China for Hong Kong by traversing some 5 miles of perilous waters. Countless others were captured and sent to labour camps, or died trying.

Twice a day, for a total of 19 months during the 1920s, the American vaudeville performer Edward H Gibson would get up on stage and perform a death-defying routine. The man billed as ‘The Human ...

In Nigeria’s oil fields, international giants have pumped crude for decades – yet the country struggles to develop its own refineries or high-tech industries. In Mexico, global car companies churn out ...

What we would today call cash assistance for the differently abled could in a different era permissibly have been called welfare for cripples. The terms welfare and crippled sound somewhere between ...

What would it take to build a more just society? In contemporary debates about justice, identity is frequently front and centre, but the 20th-century American philosopher John Rawls thought that ...

In 1856, quarry workers in the Neander Valley in the west of Germany stumbled on 16 humanlike – yet not quite human – bones that would upend our understanding of our species. The finding, which was ...

The US philosopher John Rawls (1921-2002) is perhaps best known for his ‘veil of ignorance’ thought experiment, which he first laid out in his landmark work A Theory of Justice (1971). Envisioning a ...

Recombinant DNA – or DNA created by artificially splicing the genes of more than one organism – has transformed modern medicine, helping to launch the biotechnology industry and opening up paths to ...

Human beings are the only creatures who can make themselves miserable. Other animals certainly suffer when they experience negative events, but only humans can induce negative emotions through ...

The idea that success is deserved has great traction in the world. But Zhuangzi argues that it is a deeply flawed notion ...

For most people today, public elections are synonymous with democracy. However, between 508 and 322 BCE, Athenians favoured a lottery system known as ‘sortition’. They largely believed it to be more ...

From a broken life to a broken nail, ‘trauma’ has been bleached by overuse. But it names something real – and must be reclaimed ...