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Articles

Victorians Made Jewelry Out of Human Hair

Hair work went out of fashion around 1925, but it was popular for hundreds of years before that

A screenshot of the first video of a giant squid in the wild.

The Top Five Ocean Stories of 2013

This year we’ve seen amazing footage of marine creatures, discovered how plastic works its way into the food chain, employed 3D printing to build new reefs

Measured snowfall from this past weekend.

Here Are Your Odds of Getting a White Christmas

If nothing else, it gives you an excuse to sit inside all day drinking hot chocolate

We’ve Done So Well by Chesapeake Oysters, We Can Start Eating Them Again

Perhaps this time we can keep ourselves from eating them to oblivion

How the North American Aerospace Defense Command Got Into the Business of Tracking Santa

It all began in 1955 with Sears, a wrong number and a very confused Colonel

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See Every One of Santa’s International Guises

An entrepreneurial kid could potentially rack up on the gifts by traveling around the world, hitting three Christmas jackpots in one short month

Meet the Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement

Nearly a billion dollars a year is flowing into the organized climate change counter-movement

A magnitude 7.6 earthquake struck Costa Rica on September 5, 2012, producing a strong shaking through much of the country.

Scientists Successfully Forecasted the Size and Location of an Earthquake

Well before Costa Rica shook in a magnitude 7.6 quake in September 2012, geoscientists forecasted that the region was due for a magnitude 7.7 to 7.8 quake

NASA Recreated the Moment When Apollo 8 Astronauts Captured the Iconic Earthrise Photograph

Cockpit recordings and modern mapping are used to show what, exactly, the astronauts were seeing out their windows when Earthrise was photographed

What Did the FAO Schwarz Catalog Look Like in 1911?

Old photos from an FAO Schwarz 1911 catalog provide a glimpse at past holiday toys

The Gift Card Was Invented by Blockbuster in 1994

So the next time you buy a little piece of plastic with money on it for someone, you can thank Blockbuster

A new species of tapir, a herbivorous mammal, was discovered in the Amazon earlier this month.

A Recap of Our Five Favorite New Species of 2013

An owl, a cat, a dolphin, and of course the olinguito, are among this year’s biggest new species finds

Campylaspis costata, a species of crawfish recently discovered in Norway.

Look Closely, And You Can Find New Species—Even in Well-Explored Countries Like Norway

Determination is all that’s needed to discover new species

What Does Sociology Teach Us About Gift Giving?

Not only do gifts make or break relationships, they also tell scientists about society as a whole. No pressure.

A side-by-side comparison of cities’ sizes.

Everything’s Bigger in America, Especially Urban Sprawl

Eight other cities (total population: 100 million) fit into the footprint of Atlanta (population: 5 million)

This 200 Million-Year-Old Plant Species Helps Explain the Origin of All Flowers

Of the 300,000 flowering plants known today, Amborella is the only one that directly traces back to the common ancestor of them all

Patience Wright, c. 1782. Artist unknown.

The Madame Tussaud of the American Colonies Was a Founding Fathers Stalker

Patience Wright remained independence-minded in her correspondence with Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson

The Best of the British Medical Journal’s Goofy Christmas Papers

This year, for example, we learned about just how much James Bond actually drank. Last year we learned just why Rudolph’s nose was red

The Terrible Twos Are Actually the Worst

Toddlers are brats. It’s science

Comprised of more than 500,000 Lego pieces, this yellow-and-black hot rod can be driven at speeds of up to 17 mph.

Watch This Air-Powered Lego Car Cruise Down A Street

A Lego-maniac builds a life-sized working car made from more than 500,000 plastic toy pieces

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