* [At Elizabeth Peabody’s bookshop](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/at-elizabeth-peabodys-bookshop/)
===============================================================================================
By Randall Fuller
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/at-elizabeth-peabodys-bookshop/)
* [Witches and witchcraft](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/witches-and-witchcraft/)
==============================================================================
By Anatoly Liberman
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/witches-and-witchcraft/)
* [The hag’s revenge and vindication](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/the-hags-revenge-and-vindication/)
===================================================================================================
By Anatoly Liberman
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/the-hags-revenge-and-vindication/)
* [](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/at-elizabeth-peabodys-bookshop/)
* [](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/witches-and-witchcraft/)
* [](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/the-hags-revenge-and-vindication/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/does-it-matter-if-what-i-do-doesnt-make-a-difference/)
[Does it matter if what I do doesn’t make a difference?](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/does-it-matter-if-what-i-do-doesnt-make-a-difference/)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By David Benatar
Moral vegetarians think that we should not eat meat because doing so wrongfully harms animals. One response is that, in any typical case, purchasing and eating meat will do no harm. The animal has already been killed, and markets are not so sensitive that an individual purchase or meat meal will lead to additional animals being killed.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/does-it-matter-if-what-i-do-doesnt-make-a-difference/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/making-economics-more-human/)
[Making economics more human](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/making-economics-more-human/)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Bart Wilson
As the “official doctrine of neoclassical economics, enshrined in all respectable textbooks,” the esteemed game theorist Ken Binmore says, revealed preference theory “succeeds in accommodating the infinite variety of the human race within a single theory simply by denying itself the luxury of speculating about what is going on inside someone’s head. Instead, it pays attention only to what people do.”
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/making-economics-more-human/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/five-inspiring-biographies-for-womens-history-month-reading-list/)
[Five inspiring biographies for Women’s History Month \[reading list\]](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/five-inspiring-biographies-for-womens-history-month-reading-list/)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Amy Guest
In honor of Women’s History Month, we are celebrating the lives and legacies of inspiring women throughout history that played path-breaking roles in shaping philosophy and literature. This reading list features five books that amplify the achievements of these women who were either overshadowed by men, or subject to hierarchical thinking.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/five-inspiring-biographies-for-womens-history-month-reading-list/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/elizabeth-taylors-working-women/)
[Elizabeth Taylor’s working women](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/elizabeth-taylors-working-women/)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Matthew Kennedy
In the 1950s and 1960s, actress Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) was one of the most famous women on earth, someone to put alongside Queen Elizabeth II and Jackie Kennedy. Her complex marital history, many health crises, and love affairs were the stuff of front page headlines. She was, by any standard, the personification of the larger-than-life celebrity movie star.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/elizabeth-taylors-working-women/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/a-wary-approach-to-hemlock/)
[A wary approach to _hemlock_](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/a-wary-approach-to-hemlock/)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Anatoly Liberman
Today’s story is about a deadly plant or rather, about its moribund etymology. And yet, when you reach the end, the word’s origin may appear somewhat more transparent, even though the plant will remain as deadly as ever.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/a-wary-approach-to-hemlock/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/moby-dick-and-the-united-states-of-aggrievement/)
[_Moby-Dick_ and the United States of Aggrievement](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/moby-dick-and-the-united-states-of-aggrievement/)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By David Haven Blake
Like the white whale itself, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) seems ubiquitous across time. For nearly a century, readers have turned to Captain Ahab’s search for the whale that took his leg to understand American crises. Donald Trump’s return to the presidency offers a different question about Melville, domination, and US political life: How do Americans gain power by claiming that they have been wronged?
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/moby-dick-and-the-united-states-of-aggrievement/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/fashion-lingo/)
[Fashion lingo](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/fashion-lingo/)
------------------------------------------------------------
By Edwin L. Battistella
As a linguist, I understand that language shifts and changes. The voiced z sound of houses is being replaced by an unvoiced s sound. The abbreviation A.I. has become a verb, as in “He A.I.ed it.” Neologisms abound, tracked by the American Dialect Society, and new words often make us think of things in new ways.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/fashion-lingo/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/searching-dna-databases-cold-hits-and-hot-button-issues/)
[Searching DNA databases: cold hits and hot-button issues](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/searching-dna-databases-cold-hits-and-hot-button-issues/)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Henry A. Erlich
Many criminal investigations, including “cold cases,” do not have a suspect but do have DNA evidence. In these cases, a genetic profile can be obtained from the forensic specimens at the crime scene and electronically compared to profiles listed in criminal DNA databases.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/searching-dna-databases-cold-hits-and-hot-button-issues/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/idiomatic-pigs-and-hogs/)
[Idiomatic pigs and hogs](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/idiomatic-pigs-and-hogs/)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Anatoly Liberman
According to an aphorism by Maxim Gorky, he who was born to crawl won’t fly. This is probably true of most other creatures. For instance, English speakers have great doubts about the ability of pigs to fly.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/idiomatic-pigs-and-hogs/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/the-end-of-the-american-century/)
[The end of the “American Century”?](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/the-end-of-the-american-century/)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Tammy M. Proctor
“We Americans are unhappy,” is the opening line in a famous 1941 Life magazine article, in which Henry Luce called for Americans to harness the nation’s ingenuity as a benevolent force in the world. Partly aimed at the nation’s 1930s isolationism, his earnest exhortation to be imaginative and bold also spoke to a moment when decisive action might well turn the tide of war in Europe.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/the-end-of-the-american-century/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/half-a-century-with-oup-remembering-bill-leuchtenburg-1922-2025/)
[Half a century with OUP: remembering Bill Leuchtenburg (1922-2025)](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/half-a-century-with-oup-remembering-bill-leuchtenburg-1922-2025/)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Nancy Toff
In 2003, historian William E. Leuchtenburg signed a contract with OUP for a trade book on the executive branch. It was to be 60 to 80,000 words, 200 printed pages, due September 2005. Because he had two other large book projects underway, Bill did not make that date.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/half-a-century-with-oup-remembering-bill-leuchtenburg-1922-2025/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/natures-landscape-artists/)
[Nature’s landscape artists](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/natures-landscape-artists/)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Robert Page
Claude Monet once said, “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.” Perhaps he should have given bees equal credit for his occupation. Without them, the dialectical coevolutionary dance with flowers that has lasted 125 million years would not have produced the colorful landscapes he so cherished. For Darwin, it was an abominable mystery; for Monet, an endless inspiration.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/natures-landscape-artists/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/thomas-wentworth-higginson-and-the-freedom-jubilee/)
[Thomas Wentworth Higginson and the freedom jubilee](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/thomas-wentworth-higginson-and-the-freedom-jubilee/)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Douglas R. Egerton
“Colonel Higginson was a man on fire,” read one obituary. “He had convictions and lived up to them in the fullest degree.” The obituary added that he had “led the first negro regiment, contributed to the literature of America, and left an imprint upon history too deep to be obliterated.” Thomas Wentworth Higginson would have been pleased to have been referred to as “colonel.” He was proud of his military service and happily used the title for many decades after the end of the Civil War and up to his death in May 1911 at the age of eighty-seven.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/thomas-wentworth-higginson-and-the-freedom-jubilee/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/dwarf-and-its-past/)
[_Dwarf_ and its past](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/dwarf-and-its-past/)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Anatoly Liberman
First, my thanks to those who wrote kind words about my most recent essays. Especially welcome was the comment that sounded approximately so: “I understand almost nothing in his posts but always enjoy them.” It has always been my aim not only to provide my readers, listeners, and students with information but also to be a source of pure, unmitigated joy.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/dwarf-and-its-past/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/frances-oldham-kelsey-fame-gender-and-science/)
[Frances Oldham Kelsey: fame, gender, and science](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/frances-oldham-kelsey-fame-gender-and-science/)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Cheryl Krasnick Warsh
Frances Oldham Kelsey, pharmacologist, physician, and professor, found fame soon after she finally, well into her forties, landed a permanent position as medical reviewer for the Food and Drug Administration in 1961. One of the first files to cross her desk was for the sedative thalidomide (tradename Kevadon), which was very popular in Europe and other nations for treating morning sickness.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/frances-oldham-kelsey-fame-gender-and-science/)
[](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/discussing-your-research-findings/)
[Discussing your research findings](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/discussing-your-research-findings/)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By David H. Foster
Most research articles in journals have a standard structure with sections entitled “Introduction,” “Methods,” “Results,” and “Discussion.” Each has a clear remit except for the Discussion, which, if you’re a less experienced writer, may seem a hopelessly vague description. The occasional alternative of “Conclusion” or “General Discussion” isn’t much better.
[Read More](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/discussing-your-research-findings/)
1[2](https://blog.oup.com/page/2/ "Page 2")[3](https://blog.oup.com/page/3/ "Page 3")[4](https://blog.oup.com/page/4/ "Page 4")[10](https://blog.oup.com/page/10/ "Page 10")[20](https://blog.oup.com/page/20/ "Page 20")[»](https://blog.oup.com/page/2/)
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[Editors Picks](#panel1)
------------------------
### [How to choose the right journal](https://blog.oup.com/2024/07/how-to-choose-the-right-journal/)
July 17th 2024
### [AI attitudes and behaviour: researcher profiles \[interactive\]](https://blog.oup.com/2024/07/ai-attitudes-and-behaviour-researcher-profiles-interactive/)
July 8th 2024
### [Speech, AI, and the future of neurology](https://blog.oup.com/2024/06/speech-ai-and-the-future-of-neurology/)
June 24th 2024
### [A listener’s guide to _Sand Rush_ \[playlist\]](https://blog.oup.com/2024/06/a-listeners-guide-to-sand-rush-playlist/)
June 3rd 2024
### [Working together: William Walton and Oxford University Press](https://blog.oup.com/2024/05/working-together-william-walton-and-oxford-university-press/)
May 23rd 2024
### [Messy, messy masculinity: The politics of eccentric men in the early United States](https://blog.oup.com/2024/05/messy-messy-masculinity-the-politics-of-eccentric-men-in-the-early-united-states/)
May 7th 2024
[Most Discussed](#panel2)
-------------------------
### [The hag’s revenge and vindication](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/the-hags-revenge-and-vindication/)
March 5th 2025
### [A wary approach to _hemlock_](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/a-wary-approach-to-hemlock/)
February 26th 2025
### [Fashion lingo](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/fashion-lingo/)
February 23rd 2025
### [Witches and witchcraft](https://blog.oup.com/2025/03/witches-and-witchcraft/)
March 12th 2025
### [Idiomatic pigs and hogs](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/idiomatic-pigs-and-hogs/)
February 19th 2025
### [Searching DNA databases: cold hits and hot-button issues](https://blog.oup.com/2025/02/searching-dna-databases-cold-hits-and-hot-button-issues/)
February 21st 2025
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* [The remains of 'Cro-Magnon man' were found in a cave site in which European country?](http://www.oxfordreference.com//viewbydoi/10.1093/acref/9780198821489.013.1078)
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