A 'Holy Grail' for Botanists Has Been Found in California
This long-lost wildflower sighting by Antioch is botany’s holy grail. via @pfimritehttps://t.co/EBFvuWtl0kpic.twitter.com/jc2Yf2X1LX— SFChronicle (@sfchronicle) September 8, 2016Somewhere outside...
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9 Bizarre Schools That We Promise Actually Exist
Gladiator School's leaders in full garb. (Photo: Gruppo Storico Romano/Used with permission)It's back to school week across the U.S. for everyone from preschoolers to graduate students. And while there...
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How the FBI Tied Tupac's Death to Eazy-E, Death Row Records, and the Jewish...
(Photo: marycsalome/CC BY 2.0)A version of this story originally appeared on Muckrock.com.On September 7th, 1996, rap icon Tupac Shakur was gunned down in Las Vegas by unknown assailants, leading to...
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Mapping the Hidden Structures of New York City's Internet Networks
A construction worker sprays a cryptic telecommunication marking. [Photo: Z22/CC-BY-SA-4.0]Some of the most underappreciated, complicated architecture lies hidden beneath the city’s surface. Buried...
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Picturing the Strange and Surreal World of Duos and Dopplegangers
(Photo: Kostis Fokas/ compilation © 2016 by Sandrine Kerfante)Humans have long had a fascination with duos and doubles. The ancient Egyptians believed that every person had a ka, a spirit version of...
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Disaster Response Now Includes Rapid Mapmaking
NASA's rapid-response map of rainfall in Louisiana. (Photo: NASA/JAXA, Hal Pierce)When Louisiana was hit with historic flooding, in August 2016, the federal government’s response teams went into...
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The Future of Animatronics, From Disney to the U.S. Military
This ain't your dad's animatronic... dad. (Photo: Courtesy of Garner Holt Productions/Used with Permission)When you think of animatronics, you may flash to the janky mechanical pizza parlor bands of...
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Here’s What an Underground Nuclear Test Actually Looks Like
Subsidence craters left by underground tests in Nevada. (Photo: Dept. of Energy)North Korea has conducted an underground test of a nuclear weapon, its fifth in a decade. According to South Korea, which...
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Why the Purple Skittle Tastes Different Outside America
Succulent blackcurrants waiting to be picked. (Photo: Public Domain)Pop quiz: What flavor is the purple Skittle? If you grew up tasting the rainbow in the U.S. of A, the answer is clearly grape. But in...
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How Nevada Became the Only State Where You Can Vote for 'None Of These...
An empty senate chamber, circa 1873. (Photo: Library of Congress/LC-DIG-cwpbh-03299)Sometimes voting feels like a very tough SAT question: none of the choices seem right. What to do when you can't put...
View ArticleWatch a Mysterious Video of a Truck Driving Through an Interstate Flood
Deadly flooding this year in Louisiana has been a slow-moving disaster for the state, displacing hundreds of thousands of residents and causing millions in damage. It got pretty bad, in other words,...
View ArticleWatch This Tiny Rainbow Peacock Spider Dance the Performance of His Life
Male spiders will do a lot for the loving attention of a female. The famous peacock spider has quite the demonstration. He sways, struts, bobs, shudders, waves his arms, and exposes his brightly...
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A Chinese Billionaire is Likely Behind a Huge Aluminum Stockpile in the...
(Photo: mjneuby/CC BY 2.0)In 2014, photos taken from the sky revealed that around six percent of the world's aluminum—or around a million tons—was sitting in a desert in Mexico. As the Wall Street...
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The UN General Assembly Plans Meeting Over 'Superbugs'
SUPERBUGS! (Photo: John Voo/CC BY 2.0)UN meetings aren’t all boring commissions on tariffs and diplomacy, sometimes they are about creating a worldwide defense against “superbugs.” According to Science...
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An Ode to Concrete
Buzludzha monument in Bulgaria. (Photo: decar66/CC BY 2.0)In the middle of the 20th century a new wave of modernism swept over the architectural world, and it was made of concrete. The material’s low...
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Do You Know the New York Accent Better Than a New Yorker?
But what does it sound like? (Photo: W45lin/CC BY-SA 4.0)Can you tell where in New York someone is from based on their accent? A new online survey is testing whether even native New Yorkers can tell...
View ArticleWatch a Clip from the Glory Days of the Pageant Swimsuit Competition
It's that time of year you've been counting down on your calendar: pageant season. Who will be deemed most beautiful in each of all those many nations? Who will hit the high notes in the talent...
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There's a Tiny Utopia in the Middle of Queens
An award-winning playground. (Photo: Jack Goodman)New York City has many glorious and terrible attributes. One thing it generally isn’t, though, is utopian. One fifth of the population live below the...
View ArticleDriver Jailed After Calling Police to Ask Them to Stop Following Him
Last February, Bruce Dewey, a "laborer of no fixed address," according to British police, had a bad day. He was driving a Honda Legend in West Sussex county, England—about 50 miles south of London—when...
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The Illustrated Map of America's Worst Utopias
(Graphic by Michelle Enemark)There are many who want to believe that a utopia—a perfect society, an ideal world—can exist. Even in America.Yet, as quickly as leaders eagerly build utopias, they often...
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