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Sites like Brussels' Place du Jeu de Balle are featured in the new Tintin movie.

Tintin is Everywhere in Brussels

The famed comic book character, now a Steven Spielberg-Peter Jackson film, is a nifty way to know the Belgian capital

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Holy Zamboni! The Zoo’s Skating Rink Has No Ice

The new skating rink at the National Zoo is a high-tech innovation made of recycled acrylic

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December Dinosaur Digest

From guarding cars to stomping around New Jersey, dinosaurs have been prominent in this week’s headlines

Three great picture books from 2011

A Trio of Outstanding Picture Books

Three more books to add to the Best of Childrens Books 2011 list

Fossil leaves from the 77,000-year-old mattress

The World’s Oldest Mattress

A 77,000-year-old grass mattress is the earliest bed in the archaeological record. What did earlier hominids sleep on?

Curator Carlene Stephens, on left, and collections manager Shari Stout look at a glass disc containing a sound recording from the 1880s.

From the Collections, Sound Recordings Heard for the First Time

The National Museum of American History recovers sound from recordings that have been silenced for over a century

Gestational diabetes is a risk for older pregnant women.

The Gestational Diabetes Diet: Taking Carbs from a Pregnant Lady

The last thing a pasta-loving pregnant lady with a sweet tooth wants to hear is that she should cut out carbs

In Nepal, the Lambrecht family of Sebastopol, California is loving life and local transport.

Have Kids, Will Travel

“We were travelers. It was in our blood, and the idea that we would ever stop traveling just because we had kids never sat well with us”

The Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge University

Read Sir Isaac Newton’s Works Online

Cambridge University is digitizing its collection of works by Newton and other revolutionary scientists of the past

Amundsen at the South Pole, one hundred years ago today

The Path of Exploration

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The Dinosaur Family Foodchain

You Are Umasou has to be one of the cutest dinosaur films ever, and one of the strangest

The foamy head of a Ramos gin fizz

Raise a Glass to Cocktail Science

Harvard scientists examine the science behind mixology and may help you build a better cocktail

Modern Mechanix and Inventions (April, 1934)

Boxing Robots of the 1930s

Jack Dempsey boasted he could tear apart a robot opponent “bolt by bolt and scatter its brain wheels and cogs all over the canvas”

A page from my own calendar, with a photo of giraffes taken at Tarongo Zoo in Sydney, Australia

Should You Buy a Wildlife Calendar?

Not all photographers are ethical about where they shoot their photos

The Presto ordering system

My Name is Presto and I’ll Be Your Waiter

At more and more restaurants you’ll be ordering your meals on a tablet at your tabletop. Will we miss waiters?

A bakery in Puglia

Inviting Writing: What Do You Call That Cookie?

It is nearly impossible to find anything on the Internet when you have only a phonetic spelling from a foreign language

Sullenberger with his daughters in 2001 -- pre-fame

No Way to Treat a Hero

Would Chesley Sullenberger really want to be FAA Administrator?

Baby Maiasaura and a parent at a mount in the Wyoming Dinosaur Center. Baby Maiasaura bones and egg fragments were the first dinosaur fossils in space.

Dinosaurs In Space!

It’s not just science fiction—dinosaurs have already been in space twice

Perhaps necklaces of shell beads were among the earliest gifts our ancestors gave each other (as seen at the National Museum of Natural History).

Hominid Gifts for the Holidays

Human evolution T-shirt, necktie, coloring book and board game are just a few of the hominid-themed gifts you can give your loved ones this holiday season

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The Problem With Eureka

The son of Charles Darwin, a scientist in his own right, knows where the true secret to success lies

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