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Pet Store Refuses to Sell Impulse-Buy Puppies for Christmas

Too many animals end up on death row, one Australian pet shop says, so their shop will not sell kittens or puppies around Christmas time

‘Apocalypse Then’

More Than One Person Has Built an Ark To Prepare for the Mayan Apocalypse

How exactly does one prepare for the end of the world?

Hunt for African Wildlife From Your Computer

A new citizen science project lets you in to the beautiful world of Serengeti National Park

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Your Christmas Tree Helps Fight Climate Change

The key for trapping carbon lies in the soil, rather than the trees.

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This Meteor Shower Is So New It Doesn’t Even Have a Name

For the first time, debris from the comet Wirtanen may cross paths with the Earth

Before the Civil War, There Were 8,000 Different Kinds of Money in the U.S.

It wasn’t until after the war that the U.S. started to really use the dollar

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These Two Kids Are Turning 12 at 12:12 on 12/12/12

One plans to eat Krispy Kreme donuts arranged in the shape of a 12, because “donuts are awesome”

The Obamadon is that little blue guy in the left corner.

How To Get an Ancient Lizard Named After You: Get Elected President

Simply get elected president, and you’ll have a fair chance of some newly discovered creature inheriting your moniker

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A New Way to Generate Brain Cells from Pee

This trick could help supply cells for studying the mechanisms of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

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This Is Probably the World’s Most Beautiful Seismograph

Using different colors of paint and a map of Christchurch, this machine lays down beautiful portraits of New Zealand’s deadly earthquakes

Radar images of Toutatis captured during its 1992 flyby.

Get Ready: A 2.8-Mile Wide Asteroid Is About to Swoop Past Earth

A huge asteroid will pass near Earth today, and you can watch it live online

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We Don’t Know the Origins of the Candy Cane, But They Almost Certainly Were Not Christian

There are a lot of explanations floating around out there about the candy cane—but almost none of them are true

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The Most Exclusive Coffee in the World Is Harvested From Elephant Poo

Two cups of the so-called Black Ivory coffee cost around $50, while a pound of the digested beans total a tidy $500

A reef ecosystem grows on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Environmentalists Want To Keep Oil Platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Wait, What?

Oil companies want to pull their rigs from the Gulf, but environmentalists are saying “no”

Google Gives Millions To Build Poacher-Hunting Drones

Google has joined Hillary Clinton, basketball star Yao Ming and countless wildlife organizations in the battle against illegal wildlife trade

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In a Homemade Tank, Syrian Rebels Use a PlayStation Controller to Operate a Machine Gun

The Syrian rebel forces, who face a strong disparity in access to the tools of war, have fashioned themselves a homemade tank

The Lake Ellsworth drilling camp

British Scientists Will Drill Through Three Kilometers of Ice Into an Ancient Antarctic Lake

More than a decade of planning will come together this week for a five-day push through three kilometers of ice

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This Weird Map Visualizes Air Pollution as Nose Hair Length

If there’s one thing nobody wants, it’s really long nose hairs. Which is perhaps why Clean Air Asia has decided to start visualizing each person’s air pollution as super-long, disgusting nose hairs

National Geographic Sells a Painting of Pirates for More than One Million Dollars

For the first time in its 125 year history, National Geographic has opened up its collection to bidders at Christie’s an art auction house based in NYC

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Stylish But Illegal Monkey Caught at Ikea

A confused monkey wearing a shearling coat and diaper was found wandering around outside an Ikea store in Toronto

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