Articles

Eleanor Roosevelt and the Soviet Sniper

Pavlichenko was a Soviet sniper credited with 309 kills—and an advocate for women’s rights. On a U.S. tour in 1942, she found a friend in the first lady

February 21, 2013

Some Mosquitoes Become Immune to DEET After Just a Few Hours of Exposure

A new study indicates that roughly half become habituated to the smell of DEET over time, reducing its effectiveness as a repellent

February 20, 2013

Can Chemistry Make Healthy Foods More Appealing?

Making healthy foods like tomatoes more palatable may increase our desire to eat these foods while decreasing our gravitation towards sugary snacks

February 20, 2013

Robot Vanna, Trashy Presidents and Steak as Health Food: Samsung Sells Tomorrow

Advertisers love to use futurism as a way to position their products as forward-thinking

February 20, 2013

Locking Eyes With Spiders and Insects

Macrophotographer Thomas Shahan takes portraits of spiders and insects in the hopes of turning your revulsion of the creatures into reverence

February 20, 2013

Vilcabamba: Paradise Going Bad?

Life in this legendary town in Ecuador’s Valley of Longevity may be too good—and too long—to be true

February 20, 2013

Will the Next Lake-Effect Snowstorm be Severe? Ask Mountains Far Far Away

Scientists use computer simulations to test how geographic features help create intense snowstorms that blanket cities near lake shores with snow

February 20, 2013

Birds and Bards: Beautiful Japanese Images from the Edo Period

Everything from parrots to gossipy novels influenced art in Japan between 1603 to 1868

February 20, 2013

Automating Hard or Hardly Automating? George Jetson and the Manual Labor of Tomorrow

And you think you’re having a bad work week, just think about the robots

February 19, 2013

Amateur Naturalists Are Discovering All Kinds of New Insect Species

More and more, amateurs are contributing to the discovery of new species, especially of insects - but can they keep ahead of the extinction curve?

February 19, 2013

Events February 19-21: Native Voices, a Modern Silent Film and Trumpet Jazz

This week, watch films by American Indian youths, see Academy Award-winner “The Artist” and snap your fingers to some world-class jazz

February 19, 2013

The History of the Flapper, Part 3: The Rectangular Silhouette

Finally, women could breathe deeply when the waist-nipping corset went out of style

February 19, 2013

No Salt, No Problem: One Woman’s Life-or-Death Quest to Make “Bland” Food Delicious

The more salt we eat, the more we crave. This new approach to less-salty cooking might help you step off the treadmill

February 19, 2013

Into the Cave of Chile’s Witches

Did members of a powerful society of warlocks actually murder their enemies and kidnap children?

February 19, 2013

What Can We Do About Big Rocks From Space?

Last week’s close encounters with space rocks have raised concerns about how we deal with dangerous asteroids. Here’s how we would try to knock them off course.

February 19, 2013

It’s Raining Spiders in Brazil

A video captures images of thousands of spiders raining down on a Brazilian town, but it turns out this event is perfectly normal

February 18, 2013

Any Two Pages on the Web Are Connected By 19 Clicks or Less

There are more than 14 billion pages on the web, but they are linked by hyperconnected nodes, like Hollywood actors connected through Kevin Bacon

February 18, 2013

Know Your Presidents? Stabbings, Pet Raccoons, Cat Fights and Other Presidential Lore

Do you know which president liked to skinny dip in the Potomac or who had the first pet cat in the White House?

February 18, 2013

Parched Middle East Faces Severe Water Crisis

Drought and over-pumping has led to groundwater losses in the Middle East that equal almost the entire volume of the Dead Sea, a new study shows.

February 15, 2013

Libra: The 21st Century (Libertarian) Space Colony

The government can’t get their hands on you when you’re floating above Earth

February 15, 2013