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In 1669, the colonial government of Carolina, which encompassed most of what is now Georgia and North and South Carolina, adopted the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. This document specifically promised religious freedom for Jews, heathens, and other dissenters from the Anglican church. At a time when much of Europe was still embroiled in religious wars, this was historic and even radical.

What information gaps exist in history? Specifically, who are the people we don’t hear about, and where can their footsteps be seen today? Associate Professor of African and Black Atlantic Art History Matthew Rarey seeks to tackle those very questions in his book Insignificant Things: Amulets and the Art of Survival in the Early Black Atlantic (Duke University Press, 2023), which traces the history of sacred objects created by people of African descent living in South America and Europe.

Bacteria are everywhere you go. In the case of Caulobacter crescentus —the funky, crescent-shaped star of a recent paper by Assistant Professor of Biology Gaybe Moore ’15 —this is no exaggeration. It’s in the soil, in the water, and around your plants, and it surprisingly produces the world’s stickiest superglue as a biofilm.

From a very young age, we’re taught that being made of cells is a defining feature of life. In fact, associate professor of biology Aaron Goldman encountered this assumption in a college textbook and initially used it as a springboard to discuss the benefits of cellularity with his students. But the more Goldman thought about it, the more he realized that cellularity isn’t something to be taken for granted—even (and especially) when it comes to the origins of life.