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History

Turkey’s ‘Fairy Chimneys’ Were Millions of Years in the Making

Nature built them, but humans made them their own

Cool Finds

These Century-Old Stone “Tsunami Stones” Dot Japan’s Coastline

“Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.”

The famous terracotta army guards the tomb of Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang. Dozens of other graves and ruins around China are not so well secured.

Trending Today

What’s Behind China’s Professional Tomb Raiding Trend?

Move over, Lara Croft: raiding tombs is an increasingly viable career in China

Cool Finds

Teenage Girls Have Led Language Innovation for Centuries

They’ve been on the cutting edge of the English language since at least the 1500s

A stone etching on the grave of crewmember Lt. John Irving depicts the dire conditions that the Franklin expedition faced when they reached the Canadian Arctic.

New Research

Franklin’s Doomed Arctic Expedition Ended in Gruesome Cannibalism

New bone analysis suggests crew resorted to eating flesh, then marrow

A section of the digitally unwrapped Ein Gedi scroll, bearing text from Leviticus.

1,500-Year-Old Text Has Been Digitally Resurrected From a Hebrew Scroll

Special software helped reveal the words on a burned scroll found inside a holy ark near the Dead Sea

New Horizons snapped this image of Pluto on July 12, 2015.

Cool Finds

How Pluto Got Its Name

New Horizons carries an instrument named for Venetia Burney, the 11-year-old girl who named Pluto

The world as we knew it.

Anthropocene

How Geography Shaped Societies, From Neanderthals to iPhones

This weeks’ episode of Generation Anthropocene discusses efforts to quantify social development and the cultural retention of the Navajo

A mermaid as depicted in Sea Fables Explained by Henry Lee, published in 1883.

Cool Finds

The Murky Tale of John Smith and the Mermaid

Alexander Dumas probably just made it up

A screen shot from a video about how Indo-European languages spread around the globe.

Cool Finds

Half of All Languages Come From This One Root Tongue. Here’s How it Conquered the Earth.

Today, three billion people speak Indo-European langauges

A sumptuously appointed room within the Borgia family's castle in Tuscany, now available for everyday people to rent.

Urban Explorations

Want to Sleep Like a King, Queen or Borgia For a Night? Stay in these Historic Airbnbs

Whether it’s the former home of a national icon or an extravagant estate in Europe, the sharing economy offers the chance to go back in time for a night

The Egtved girl was a high-born female from the Bronze Age. In her grave in Denmark, she wears a wool dress. Wool textiles and a bronze belt plate that resembles the sun surround her remains.

Cool Finds

What Was Life Like for a Girl in the Bronze Age?

Analysis of a 3,400-year-old burial traces the life story of a Bronze Age female

The original Pac-Man was kind of a feminist.

Pac-Man Turns 35 This Month

The now-iconic game was originally released by Namco in 1980

Austria

How Did an Ottoman War Camel End Up in an Austrian Basement?

Archaeologists think they have solved the mystery

The newfound ruins could outshine their neighbor, the underground city of Derinkuyu (pictured).

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Unfold World’s Largest Underground City in Turkey

Archaeologists find evidence to believe a site just discovered in 2012 could be a complex subsurface labyrinth

Cool Finds

Isaac Newton’s Laundry List of Sin

The famous physicist kept a catalog of very human transgressions

A close-range view of a landspout tornado in western Kansas, 2008.

Cool Finds

Why Forecasters Were Once Banned From Using the Word “Tornado”

Before meteorologists developed reliable prediction techniques, the t-word was off the table

Pi Day pies.

Indiana Almost Made Pi Equal to 3.2, and Other Pi Day Facts

As you celebrate the mathematical holiday, here’s a history of notable moments in the irrational number’s past

Were the Terracotta Warriors Based on Actual People?

To answer that question, archaeologists are looking at variations in the soldiers’ ears

DNA from Richard III’s bones revealed two instances of royal infidelity since the 14th century.

They Found Richard III. So Now What?

What the remains of the “hunchback” king can teach us about other English royals

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