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Travel

Before the World Cup, Brazilians Are Trying to Learn English

Brazilians have 211 days left to prepare for the World Cup one of the things many of them are doing to get ready is to try and learn English

Moscow Will Give You a Free Subway Ticket If You Do 30 Squats

The Moscow subway system will now reward riders with a free trip in exchange for 30 squats

Washington Monument Scaffolding Is Coming Down Today

Two years later, the scaffolding around the Washington Monument is ready to come down

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Welcome to the World’s Only Museum Devoted to Penises

In Iceland, a man has collected 283 preserved penises from 93 species of animals—including Homo sapiens

Okeanos: A Performance Where Dancers Move Like Octopuses and Seahorses

Jodi Lomask, director of the dance company Capacitor, has choreographed an ocean-inspired show, now at San Francisco’s Aquarium of the Bay

A portrait of Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot and her granddaughter

The Widow Who Created the Champagne Industry

Love champagne? Thank a French widow

Rendering of the scaffolding that will surround the dome during its restoration.

Scaffolding is All Over D.C. Here’s Why the Monuments Still Look Majestic

When the beautiful historic buildings of our nation’s capital need repair, architects get creative with the exterior work

From the road, it would be easy to overlook this small, unassuming chapel located in one of the oldest towns in southwestern Poland. But the wooden doors hide a spectacular, macabre interior. The skulls and leg bones of over 3,000 victims of wars and plagues cover the walls and ceiling, and a crypt below, accessible through a trapdoor, houses over 21,000 additional remains. Between 1776 and 1804, the local priest, Vaclav Tomasek, painstakingly gathered, cleaned and carefully arranged skeletons recovered from numerous, shallow mass graves left by the Thirty Years’ War, Silesian Wars and cholera outbreaks. Modeled off of similar ossuaries and catacombs in Rome, the chapel was intended as a shrine for the dead, as well as a “memento mori” for the living. On the church’s altar, Tomasek placed the bones of important figures and curiosities, including the skull of the local mayor, skulls with bullet holes, a skull deformed by syphilis and the bones of a supposed giant. When the chapel's creator passed away in 1804, his skull was placed on the altar as well. View the photos above or explore the 360° interactive panorama on Kaplica Czaszek’s official site (in Polish).

This Beautiful Chapel in Czermna, Poland, Is Constructed Out of Thousands of Human Bones

Shin bones decorate the ceiling, skulls line the walls and over 21,000 bodies are buried in the basement

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Does This Japanese Restaurant Chain Foretell the End of the Waiter?

A mechanized sushi diner drives down the cost of eating out, but does the experience feel as cold as the fish?

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This Clever Augmented Reality System Lets Drivers See Through Cars

One day, augmented reality may help drivers know when to pass up a slow truck on a two-lane road

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Visit the Edge of Space on the Cheap in a High-Altitude Balloon

Do your best Felix Baumgartner impersonation with this balloon trip to the stratosphere

A New Car Proves It Can Fly (Barely)

A video demonstration by the Aeromobil may have you thinking it’s best to stay grounded for now

A calcified flamingo, preserved by the highly basic waters of Tanzania’s Lake Natron and photographed by Nick Brandt

This Alkaline African Lake Turns Animals into Stone

Photographer Nick Brandt captures haunting images of calcified animals, preserved by the extreme waters of Tanzania’s Lake Natron

Saint Coronatus joined a convent in Heiligkreuztal, Germany, in 1676

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Meet the Fantastically Bejeweled Skeletons of Catholicism’s Forgotten Martyrs

Art historian and author Paul Koudounaris elucidates the macabre splendor and tragic history of Europe’s catacomb saints

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China’s Tianducheng Is an Eerie Ghost Town Version of Paris

If and when Shanghai spills far enough into the countryside, Tianducheng and its neo-Classical apartments will be waiting

24c Curtiss Jenny inverted block of four, 1918 This upside-down blue plane within a red frame is the most famous U.S. stamp and one of the world’s most famous printing errors. Only one misprinted sheet of 100 stamps was sold. Loan from William H. Gross.

World’s Largest Stamp Gallery to Open in Washington, D.C.

America’s most famous stamp, the Inverted Jenny, goes on permanent view for the first time in history

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Top 10 Biggest Roadside Foods in America

Where is the world’s biggest pistachio?

Nobody Knows How to Interpret This Doomsday Stonehenge in Georgia

We know where they are and what they say, but everything else is all hotly debated

Red Mural, by Amber Hasselbring

A Butterfly Species Settles in San Francisco’s Market Street

Two advocates track Western tiger swallowtails through the city and use art to encourage residents to think of the fluttering creatures as neighbors

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Travel to Europe’s Most Stunning Landmarks in Under Four Minutes

Spanning three months, 21 countries and thousands of photos, “Nightvision” celebrates the finest architecture in Europe

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