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Zach Lund, a former Olympian and head driving coach for the U.S. bobsled team, films an athlete training in Lake Placid, N.Y. for the Sochi Olympics using Ubersense, an app that allows for real-time video analysis.

Winter Olympics

How Technology is Changing the Way Athletes Train

Apps like Ubersense and AMPSports bring run-by-run data to skiers, bobsledders and other competitors

New Research

A Scientific Explanation of How Marijuana Causes the Munchies

THC appears to increase our sensitivity to scents and flavors by using naturally occurring neural networks to convince the brain that it’s starving

The Milky Way over Crater Lake, Crater Lake National Park, Oregon.

Virtual Travel

Take a Photo Tour Through Oregon’s Rugged Landscapes

Travel through Oregon’s scenic backcountry with our reader-submitted photos

Do you want to be an Olympics superfan? Turn watching the games into a two-screen experience.

Winter Olympics

The Best Ways to Follow the 2014 Olympic Games

Not in Sochi? Not a problem. Stay connected with these apps and social media-lites

Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the U.S. perform during the ice dance free dance at the ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Nice, France, on March 29, 2012.

Winter Olympics

Why Reality TV May Bring Team USA Its First Gold in Ice Dancing

Amy Henderson, curator of the Smithsonian’s “Dancing the Dream” exhibition, chronicles the meteoric rise of a dazzling sport once considered vulgar

Lieutenant Daniel J. Kern and Karl Sieber examining a panel of the Ghent Altarpiece, 1945.

The Path of the Monuments Men Through Europe

Chart the course the Monuments Men took to safeguard Europe’s treasures during World War II

Walker Hancock, Lamont Moore, George Stout and two unidentified soldiers in Marburg, Germany, June 1945.

Austria

The True Story of the Monuments Men

Without the work of these curators and professors, tens of thousands of priceless works of art would have been lost to the world forever

American Cool at the National Portrait Gallery

Join curators Frank Goodyear and Joel Dinerstein in a sneak peek of their new show

The mountaineers leave the aul.

Winter Olympics

150 Years Ago, Sochi Was the Site of a Horrific Ethnic Cleansing

Czar Alexander II may have freed the serfs, but his war against the stateless people of the Caucasus cannot be ignored

UK-based startup Xeros has created a washing machine that allegedly leaves clothes cleaner while using 72 percent less water.

Tech Watch

This Washing Machine Could Be the Next Game-Changing Appliance

An innovative system that uses stain-sucking plastic beads translates to big savings

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Winter Olympics

Sochi 2014: What’s In & What’s Out

So much has changed since London and Vancouver. Let us guide you through the new Olympic scene

Lake Waiau in Hawaii shrunk to the size of a pond in just a few years. Scientists still aren't sure why the lake began to dry up.

A World of Vanishing Lakes

From the Dead Sea to a Louisiana lake that was sucked into the Earth, the stories behind the disappearances are varied

Winter Olympics

Will We Ever See a Bionic Winter Olympian?

With more sophisticated prosthetics, skiers and snowboarders are trying to break the same ground blazed by Oscar Pistorius at the 2012 Summer Olympics

Geoffrey Chaucer, the "Father of English Literature," said "ax."

Cool Finds

People Have Been Saying “Ax” Instead of “Ask” for 1,200 Years

“Ax” for “ask” isn’t wrong, it’s just different

A ski jumper flashes a V.

Winter Olympics

Five Winter Olympians Who Forever Changed Their Sports

Considered bizarre at first, these athletes’ techniques ultimately became the gold standards for their sports

The Beatles step onto the tarmac at JFK Airport on February 7, 1964, arriving for their first performance in the U.S.

Vintage Headlines

When the Beatles Arrived in America, Reporters Ignored the Music and Obsessed Over Hair

They’d go on to change American music forever, but the press focused on the moptops

Winter Olympics

Can a Statistical Model Accurately Predict Olympic Medal Counts?

Data miners have developed models that predict countries’ medal counts by looking solely at stats like latitude and GDP

A pool built in an unused metro station could help compensate for a lack of sports facilities in the city, the designers say.

Could There Be Swimming Pools or Gardens in Paris’ Abandoned Metro Stations?

Two architects offer fantastical designs for how to repurpose some of Paris’ forgotten subway stations

According to a new study, fruit flies can be genetically modified to glow the moment they come in contact with cancerous cells.

Can Fruit Flies Be Bred to Detect Cancer?

The insects have been engineered to glow in different patterns when they identify the smell of various cancers

United States athletes at the Opening Ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The Paris Olympics

Who Really Composed NBC’s Olympic Theme? Not Who You Think

Music for the Olympic Games has a long and complicated history—and John Williams, the Star Wars composer, is only part of it

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