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PHILIP BALL | According to the old story, we once thought that all this other DNA was just “junk,” a term coined in this context in the 1970s. It was accumulated over the course of evolution, for example by viruses inserting their genetic material into ours, and it did nothing useful but just cluttered up our genome the way all our old detritus of a lifetime clutters up our attic.

LUKE FISCHER | Novalis was polymathic in his range of interests and abilities: a poet, philosopher, scientist, mystic, director of salt mines . . .

GAD BARNEA | It must be realized that, from a critical perspective, the Bible cannot be considered a primary source.

Srini Pillay | From this perspective, fantasy is not a luxury but a stabilizing psychic function. . .

Throughout much of history, the Jewish way of life has been characterized by strict adherence to the practices and prohibitions legislated by the Torah: dietary laws, ritual purity, circumcision, Sabbath regulations, holidays, and more. But precisely when did this unique way of life first emerge, and why specifically at that time? In this revolutionary new study, Yonatan Adler methodically engages ancient texts and archaeological discoveries to reveal the earliest evidence of

PHILIP BALL | Science is often not a competition between theories but a process of narrative creation in which the paradigm tends to be set by the most persuasive narrative

VICTORIA MOUL | Sanskrit lyric is particularly rich in erotic verse, which is divided into many different types and typical scenarios: there is no real parallel for this in any Western literary tradition.

Philip Ball in Conversation with Naomi Moris

STEVE MASON | If historians were to sit at the table with scientists, then history needed to be more scientific (wissenschaftlich). But how?

YONAH LAVERY-YISRAELI | Perhaps the only needed modification is to go in both directions, near and far at once, with gentle caution, a controlled and attentive tumble into the stars. Cosmic mobility: that is exactly what the two-mother idea has to offer, and it is needed.

Bruce Gordon, Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Yale Divinity School