substack
Benjamin Breen, a UC Santa Cruz historian of drugs and early science, writes from strange primary sources — 17th-century alchemical letters, a newly surfaced eyewitness account of the dodo, why they stopped building wooden stupas — and is one of the few historians testing frontier AI models as genuine research tools, with the working shown. Short, odd and anchored in the archive.
July 13, 2026
Scott Alexander's team publishes its plan for AI going well, Joel Mokyr defends his Nobel thesis, and Ted Gioia argues the Odyssey belongs in the music department.
July 20, 2026
Dynomight on the coming end of pseudonymity, Brian Potter scores 239 laws against their promises, and a Sears-catalog rewrite of American growth.
March 30, 2026
Veritasium tells the story of antimatter's discovery, PBS Space Time asks if we can test quantum gravity, and Experimental History on why being serious matters.
