Culture | Fiction
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Chapter one
Threats
Biology | Environment
What We Get Wrong About Lyme Disease
The stories we tell about the epidemic get things backward.
Ideas | Climate
The Volcano That Shrouded the Earth and Gave Birth to a Monster
Three years of darkness and cold spawned crime, poverty, and a literary masterpiece.
Matter | Physics
The Universe Began With a Big Melt, Not a Big Bang
The cosmological constant and the creation of the universe.
Chapter two
Public Relations
Biology | Physiology
Out for Young Blood
Science has given new life to an old thirst.
Biology | Animals
I Am Not a Monster
Science has turned the squid from a storied monster into a marvel.
Ideas | Philosophy
Why We Can’t Rule Out Bigfoot
How the null hypothesis keeps the hairy hominid alive.
Chapter three
Fear
Ideas | Cognitive Science
Why Are So Many Monsters Hybrids?
The captivating horror of category violation.
Ideas | Philosophy
Zombies Must Be Dualists
What the existence of zombies would do to our philosophy of mind.
Ideas | Philosophy
Why We Still Need Monsters
This month’s Ingenious, Stephen T. Asma, on what haunts us.
Chapter four
The Odds
Culture | Psychology
What Boredom Does to You
The science of the wandering mind.
Biology | Environment
Is the Modern Mass Extinction Overrated?
We are ignoring the gains that balance the losses.
Numbers | Math
Math’s Beautiful Monsters
How a destructive idea paved the way for modern math.
Culture | Psychology
How Evolution Designed Your Fear
The universal grip of Stephen King’s personal terrors.
Related Facts So Romantic
“Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.” —Jules Verne
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