WASHINGTON — A few weeks ago, visiting a rare book library, I came across a volume of pressed plants and was particularly struck by a specimen of primrose. It was mounted by a German botanist in the 1590s. Later I visited the office of Laurence J. Dorr, who heads the Department of Botany at the […]

Cut open a snack-size bag of corn chips, spoon in chili, cheese and sour cream and you have a walking taco, a.k.a. Frito Pie. The birthplace of this personal meal in a bag is unclear – possibly Mexico, Texas or even a Santa Fe five-and-dime lunch counter. Regardless, Frito Pie has become part of America’s […]

Nutrition can be confusing. Fad diets make headline news, and we’re bombarded with flip-flopping reports about what to eat. The constant changes can make it tricky to plan a nutritious diet. To separate fact from fiction, a panel of physicians and researchers did a deep dive into the nutritional science, and Monday they published their […]

BOSTON — In humans’ mysterious journey to become intelligent, socializing creatures like no other in the animal world, one innovation played an essential role: religion. That’s the theory that a preeminent evolutionary scientist is setting out to prove. “You need something quite literally to stop everybody from killing everybody else out of just crossness,” said […]