Our kitchen designs are outdated.

The microplane zester, mortar and pestle, and other underrated kitchen tools

Eight chefs weigh in on the most helpful culinary tools they often don't see in people's kitchens. The very specific fish fork, for example, not only delicately moves fragile filets but can double as an olive or soft cheese server.

Modern workplaces were engineered for efficiency, not work-life balance

Modern work organization traces back to 19th-century scientific management, an approach that optimized output by viewing workers as machine components. That logic still persists today and contributes to burnout, stress, and disengagement. Researchers propose a "circular work" model that combines effort with recovery, learning, and renewal, suggesting productivity and well-being should align rather than compete.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Fascinating evolution of the oven

From ancient wood-fired ovens in Rome and Egypt to modern microwaves, the oven’s evolution has shaped how we cook. Early ovens focused on heat retention, but breakthroughs like the gas stove in 1834, and the electric stove in 1892, brought precision. Then, in 1967, the microwave redefined convenience.

'This is my invariable advice to people: Learn how to cook—try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless and above all have fun.'

- Chef Julia Child (1912-2004)

The architect who made the most of a tiny New York apartment

This short documentary explores the 350-square-foot apartment of Ben Riskin, a New York resident looking to make the most of his new home through hidden storage and ingenious design.

Delivery apps have realigned the restaurant industry

As delivery apps like Grubhub and DoorDash became popularity, traditional dine-in restaurants have adapted to become more accommodating. In this thinkpiece for the Atlantic, Ellen Cushing argues that it's both changed the kind of food being made and realigned our very notion of a restaurant. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Mac settings have evolved from minimalism to chaotic clutter

The 1984 Mac control panel featured wordless icons, sliders, and desktop pattern editors, highlighting early experimentation in graphical user interface design. This software charm and personality gradually disappeared as Apple enforced visual and functional consistency over time.

The James Beard Foundation rebranded in 2025

Design firm Siberia emphasized the foundation's mission: "good food for good." This case study from Print isn't just a fascinating look at one campaign—it’s a primer on understanding how design works.

Browse some of the most iconic Bauhaus furniture

The Bauhaus style has become so commonplace that you might not have realized its influence on modern furniture, but the German school's impact is profound, from the Wassily and Barcelona chairs to Gropius' industrial style door knob.

White House renovations have always been controversial

From Theodore Roosevelt's 1902 overhaul to Harry Truman's complete gutting in 1948 and Jacqueline Kennedy's historic restoration in the 1960s, nearly every major White House renovation has faced criticism over cost, design choices, or historical preservation.

Stainless steel and cast-iron pans should be used over older nonstick cookware

Although modern nonstick pans avoid forever chemicals like PFOA, they were previously used in the manufacturing of Teflon coatings and have been linked with certain types of cancer, infertility, and other adverse health outcomes. Vintage plastic utensils should also be avoided due to the leeching of contaminants in early formulations of plastic.

Imagining the nostalgia we'll feel one day for gas stations

Car drivers everywhere are accustomed to an endless array of gas stations along the road, with their high, flat roofs, convenience stores of varying quality, and bathroom availability. Current trends in electric vehicle development point to such stations' inevitable obsolescence, and one photographer has begun documenting neglected filling stations in transit-oriented Germany. See the images for yourself and begin the journey toward so-called petronostalgia.

Processed foods were marketed to busy wives in the 1950s

In the 1950s, they were marketed as time-saving conveniences for young families, especially those living in the rapidly expanding suburbs, who could easily find them in local supermarkets, making them a seemingly sensible alternative to fresh foods.

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

Pyramid or plate? Why nutrition guidelines change

Those who remember growing up with the age-old food pyramid may be resistant to dietary guidelines changing, but experts agree that the food pyramid recommendations held serious flaws. It suggested, for instance, that meat and junk food were meant...

There are roughly 7,000 Korean restaurants in the US

A generation ago, the average American had never heard of kimchi or bulgogi, but these days, Korean cuisine is booming in the United States. And it’s no accident. This one-minute explainer video from Morning Brew reveals what role the government played in boosting the popularity of Korean food abroad, and what it all has to do with foreign debt and soap operas.

Visualizing the world's food supply chains

The world's food supply chain is complex and lopsided, with much of the world's nutrient-rich food ending up in Europe and North America. This visualization illustrates the paths our food takes around the world, from starchy vegetables in...

Setting up a support group could be as simple as informally gathering in your kitchen

Groups may be as varied as an ad-hoc group that gets together to share information and encouragement or a longer-term group with a stated purpose and a facilitator, or perhaps look like anything in between.

Five happy hour stories from around the world

If you need some fun facts to make conversation at your next office happy hour, look no further than this video. It includes five stories about pub life, from a look inside a company that turns tap handles into works of art to a search for the oldest pub in the world.

The Hawaiian pizza was popularized by a Canadian chef

Hawaii's tiki culture was popular in North America through the mid-20th century, with canned pineapple a household staple. Sam Panopoulos, a Greek immigrant who operated a diner in Ontario, experimented with outlandish pizza recipes until he stumbled upon the idea for topping a pie with canned pineapple and ham.

Why are subway walls tiled?

In the early days of subway tunnels, architects needed to deal with dirt and moisture and make the cavernous stations less dank and dark. Ceramic tiles were easy to clean, and their glossy, bright finish helped illuminate the cave-like areas.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Explore a typical layout of an emergency department

This architectural diagram illustrates the layout of an emergency area. It provides insights into a typical emergency room organizational system to provide context for patients as they flow from entry through triage into treatment.

Keep foods out of the temperature danger zone to help avoid sickness

This graphic can help remind you what temperatures are generally unsafe for perishable food because they can promote and encourage the growth of harmful pathogens.

Critics say Nobel Prizes need updating to reflect how science and society work today

The rules still favor individuals over teams and may reflect outdated views on who does science. In 2013, the Nobel Prize in physics went to two theorists, even though over 5,000 scientists helped confirm the Higgs boson.

Love is a more recent part of marriage

Love matches are incredibly late to the marriage game. For most of our history, marriage has been about alliance, wealth, property, power, and, as an occasional afterthought, the couple liking each other. All that changed when Enlightenment thinkers were inspired in their pursuit of personal happiness, including in their choice of mate.

Construction of small, affordable starter homes has decreased 75% since the 1970s

Rising costs aren’t the only thing stopping first-time homebuyers from buying real estate—only 9% of recent new construction is for starter homes. The majority of new housing construction focuses on higher-end buyers due to the increased cost of land, labor, and resources.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often assumed to be sexual, though the artist claimed she was simply interested in highlighting the beauty of flowers that most people neglect

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.

Fish populations in the Great Barrier Reef have increased after installing waterproof speakers on the ocean floor that played recordings of sounds from healthy coral reefs.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

Cultural norms about how to handle the bodies of loved ones in communities in West Africa have hampered Ebola responses.

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.