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These cyclists are enjoying another day on the trail in the Crocodile Trophy, in northeastern Australia, considered one of the most punishing bicycle races in the world.

Grueling Travel through Beautiful Places: the Madness of Extreme Races

The Crocodile Trophy mountain biking race is off-road, meaning gravel, rocks, ruts, puddles, dust and lots of crashing

Hugo Gernsback's vision for a monument devoted to electricity (1922)

The Monument to Electricity That Never Was

A pair of Pachycephalosaurus face off at the Museum of Ancient Life in Utah.

Fossil Testifies to Pachycephalosaur Pain

A damaged skull throws support to the idea that some dome-headed dinosaurs butted heads

Architects from around the world submitted their portfolios, and by mid-December, a jury of experts invited ten design teams to re-imagine three "dead-zones" on the National Mall.

Winners Announced for National Mall Design Competition

The area between the Lincoln Memorial and the U.S. Capitol has seen better days, but architects are vying to improve the nation’s front lawn

Captain America (Chris Evans) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in Marvel’s The Avengers

Film vs. Digital: Archivists Speak Out

Pros and cons of “perforated plastic with photographic emulsion”

The supermoon of March 2011, rising behind the Lincoln Memorial In Washington, DC

The Biggest Supermoon in Years is Coming Saturday Night

The moon’s closest approach to earth will coincide with a perfectly full moon

A freakishly cold winter coated Rome's Colosseum in snow

The Snows of…Tenerife?

The white stuff can fall at any time and almost anywhere, from the streets of Rome to the subtropical Canary Islands

Image from an animated graphic showing satellite readings of groundwater fluctuations around the world.

Groundwater, Gravity and Graphic Design

An important piece of science recently popped up in Times Square, in the form of a 19,000-square-foot interactive map by a Dutch information designer

Meet the Domino, a little chip that can diagnose your health.

Medicine Goes Small

Nanotechnology is taking health care to the molecular level and changing it in profound ways. But is it all good?

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The Cost of “No” on Potato Chips

What can snack food marketing tell us about political campaigns?

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Trunk Rock: Shanthi the Elephant Jams on the Harmonica

Listen to the latest stylings of Shanthi, the Dylan of elephants

Modern humans may have used art to maintain ties between social groups. Traveling between distant social groups may have led to better spatial reasoning, a new study suggests.

Superior Navigation Secret to Humans’ Success?

Greater spatial intelligence may have given modern humans an edge over Neanderthals, a new study proposes

A promotional image, featuring a baby Pachyrhinosaurus, for Walking With Dinosaurs 3-D.

Dinosaur Cinema Explosion

After a long lull, a stampede of dinosaur films is headed for theaters

The Bureau of Air Commerce's inquiry board was tasked with investigating the cause of the accident.

Document Deep Dive

Document Deep Dive: A Firsthand Account of the Hindenburg Disaster

Frank Ward was a 17-year-old crewman when he saw the infamous disaster, but his memories of that day are still strong, 75 years later

An Aguilla Bank skink, one of the 24 new species discovered

24 New Lizard Species Discovered, Half Close to Extinction

The discoverer of the world’s (then) smallest frog, snake and lizard does it again with new species of Caribbean skinks

Small coelurosaurs like this Troodon appear to have maintained stable levels of disparity during the last 12 million years of the Cretaceous.

New Wrinkle to the Story of the Last Dinosaurs

Were the last dinosaurs thriving or declining just before Tyrannosaurus and kin disappeared?

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The Nationals’ Bryce Harper Plays Softball on the Mall

The new outfielder for the Nats made some new friends on the Mall last night

The Ginger Ninjas on the move in Guadalajara, Mexico. Where buses and airplanes would provide the horsepower for other touring bands, the Ginger Ninjas go by bicycle.

Rock, Pedal and Roll: Band Tours the World by Bicycle

“I believe the bicycle is one of the best, if not the coolest, machines ever invented,” says the frontman of the Ginger Ninjas

The Hawaiian islands, from left to right, Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Maui and the Big Island.

Paul Theroux’s Quest to Define Hawaii

For this renowned travel writer, no place has proved harder to decipher than his home for the past 22 years

Poet Mark Strand

There is No Wind in Oslo by Mark Strand

Read the new poem by the American poet and professor

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