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Articles

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The Best Backroad Bike Rides of the California North Coast

Cycling the West Coast is easy, whether you’re riding from Canada to Mexico or Portland to San Francisco

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The Mysterious Martharaptor

Utah paleontologists unveil Martharaptor, an enigmatic Cretaceous dinosaur

Composer John Cage would have been 100 this year and his legacy lives on during a centennial celebration.

Events September 4-6: Quilting Guilds, John Cage at 100 and Stitch Sessions

This week, learn from a quilting guild, celebrate composer John Cage’s avant-garde legacy and stitch a little

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Rare People Who Remember Everything

Scientists are taking a closer look at the extremely rare people who remember everything from their pasts. And yes, their brains are different.

Engaging in a firefight, along with other combat stresses, could lead to long-term changes in the connections between the midbrain and prefrontal cortex.

Combat Stress in Afghanistan Could Alter Soldiers’ Long-term Neural Makeup

A new study finds returning combat soldiers perform worse on an attention-draining task and experience long-term changes to their brains

Birds Hold Funerals For Fallen Comrades

Researchers observed that western scrub jays hold funeral reveries for fallen comrades

Viewers of this video were asked to count how many times white-shirted players passed the ball. Fifty percent of them didn’t see the woman in the gorilla suit.

But Did You See the Gorilla? The Problem With Inattentional Blindness

The most effective cloaking device is the human mind

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How Can a Jellyfish This Slow Be So Deadly? It’s Invisible

One of the world’s most devastating predators is brainless, slow and voracious

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How Biomimicry is Inspiring Human Innovation

Creative minds are increasingly turning to nature—banyan tree leaves, butterfly wings, a bird’s beak— for fresh design solutions

The pogo stick remained essentially unchanged for 80 years. Recently, three inventors have created powerful new gravity-defying machines that can leap over (small) buildings in a single bound.

How the Pogo Stick Leapt From Classic Toy to Extreme Sport

Three lone inventors took the gadget that had changed little since it was invented more than 80 years ago and transformed it into a gnarly, big air machine

Shanthi, 34, and Kandula, 8, in the Elephant Trails yard after the first phase of renovations were completed in 2010 at the Smithsonian National Zoo.

Found: A Time Capsule at the National Zoo

While renovating the Elephant House, construction workers discovered a mysterious box hidden in a wall

The "Gateway to Space" in Spaceport America, a 4,000-square-foot gallery where visitors can watch launches.

A Sneak Peek at the First Commercial Spaceport

The hub of Richard Branson’s plans for Virgin Galactic, where tourists and scientists alike take off for the great beyond

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How Many Stradivariuses Exist and More Questions From Our Readers

Why octopuses use tools, preserving flight plans, famous portraits and more

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As Long As Books Have Existed, Invisibility Has Been a Dream

We just have to look to literature to learn that there’s always been a real danger to the prospect of being invisible

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Is Ai Weiwei China’s Most Dangerous Man?

Arrested and harassed by the Chinese government, artist Ai Weiwei makes daring works unlike anything the world has ever seen

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies

D-Day Spies, Lost Antarctica, Eating Dirt and More Recent Books

A new history blows the cover on British spies in World War II

Los Texmaniacs: Texas Towns and Tex-Mex Sounds

Los Texmaniacs Release New Album

What does jalapeno-spiced polka music sound like?

gold belt terminus, seventh to sixth centuries B.C.

Spotlight

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How Steve Jobs’ Love of Simplicity Fueled A Design Revolution

Passionate to the point of obsessive about design, Steve Jobs insisted that his computers look perfect inside and out

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How a New Yorker Article Launched the First Shot in the War Against Poverty

When a powerful 1963 piece laid out the stark poverty in America, the White House took action

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