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Should National Parks Offer Wifi and Cellular Coverage?

Is cellular coverage inevitable in U.S. national parks, some of the nation’s last wireless hold-outs?

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A Restaurant in Japan Is Serving a $110 Tasting Menu Featuring Dirt

Japan’s foodies have turned their attention to a new delicacy on Tokyo menus; will dirt turn up next in haute cuisine in New York and London?

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The Saltiest Pond on Earth Could Explain How Bodies of Water Form on Mars

At 40 percent salinity, the pond is the saltiest body of water on the planet.

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When Building New Power Plants, Wind Can Be Cheaper Than Coal

In Australia, wind power is now cheaper than coal

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Tourists’ Photos Could Help Scientists Understand Whale Sharks

Every year, tourists take approximately a bazillion pictures. Most of them never wind up anywhere but someone’s hard drive, never seen again, but some of those pictures might actually be useful. Especially if they’re of whale sharks

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How Much Damage Could North Korea’s New Nuke Do?

North Korea’s new nuke could take out a big chunk of Lower Manhattan

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To Measure the Taste of Food, Listen to Your Taste Buds

What does the taste of coffee actually sound like?

Fifty Years After Sylvia Plath’s Death, Critics Are Just Starting to Understand Her Life

Cultural fascination with the author and poet continues to burn brightly despite - or perhaps because of - Plath’s premature departure from this world

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Elephants Choose to Stay Inside Safe, Less Stressful National Parks

Elephants living within the park’s boundaries are significantly less stressed than those living outside of its protective borders

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Vote on Names for Pluto’s Teeny Moons

Styx, Orpheus, Erebus or something else? What should Pluto’s moons be named?

An unfinished portrait of Mozart, from 1782.

Experts Are Weeding Out Impostor Portraits of Mozart

Experts want to do away with the romanticized conceptions of what Mozart looked like, or those of a white-wigged, red-jacketed young man at the piano

Landsat 8 sits in a United Launch Alliance Atlas-V rocket last night, ready for its 1:00 pm EST launch.

NASA Has Been Recording Earth’s Surface for 40 Years, and Today Is Its Last Chance to Keep That Going

All Those Hours Inside Could Make You Nearsighted

Just being inside all the time might be creating a population full of nearsighted people

In the Entire History of the Catholic Church, Only a Handful of Popes Have Resigned

Today, Pope Benedict XVI told the world that he would resign

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Thailand—Where it Never Snows—Wins Snow Sculpture Contest

The festival, billed as an international gathering point that “evokes a pristine snow fantasy,” attracts around 2 million people each year

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These Sneaky Toxins Are Slipping Past Food Regulators

Chemical mask-wearing mycotoxins can slip past screening techniques

Chinese relics in disrepair and the study authors’ proposed fix for the terracotta soldiers.

China’s Terracotta Warrior Army Is Deteriorating

If China doesn’t take steps to better preserve the relics, they may eventually turn into dust

Researchers thought that male fish, affected by artificial hormones in waste water, were growing eggs. This turned out to not be true.

California’s Gender-Bending Fish Was Actually Just a Contamination Accident

Scientists thought male fish, exposed to artificial hormones, were growing eggs. They weren’t

A sea turtle farm in Gran Cayman

Captive Sea Turtles Extract Their Revenge by Making Tourists Sick

Captive sea turtles in the Caymans can ruin a tourist’s visit with a nasty dose of bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites

A moose in Alaska’s Denali National Park and Preserve.

Minnesota’s Moose Are Missing, And No One Really Knows Why

Disease? Warm summers? No one knows for sure what is leading to the moose’s decline in this state

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