100 Wonders: The Blue Lagoon of Buxton
What makes certain bodies of water so beautiful? Is there a precise shade of blue that we are hardwired to want to leap into? Or have decades of Club Med and Sandals Resort advertising created the idea...
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FOUND: Australia's Newest Death Adder
The northern death adder (Photo: Christopher Watson/Wikimedia)A "Kimberley death adder" sounds like a creature that J.K. Rowling might have dreamed up and sent to kill Harry Potter, but in fact, it is...
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The Arizona Trash Castle With a Heartbreaking Secret
Mystery Castle. (Photo: Melissa/flickr)The biggest mystery concerning Phoenix, Arizona's Mystery Castle is why someone would want to build an 18-room palace out of rocks and trash.We already know who...
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The Long, Sweet Love Affair Between Cops and Doughnuts
We've got a situation. (Photo: JD Hancock/Flickr)It’s a scene procedural writers probably see in their sleep—a burglar (or bank robber, or other ne’er-do-well) slides open a window, grabs the jewels,...
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FOUND: A Tiny Dinosaur Named Ava
Ava the dinosaur (Photo: Triebold Paleontology Inc.)Ava the dinosaur is not very big: a kindergartner could look it in the eye. "This is a really cute dinosaur, if dinosaurs can be cute,' Michael...
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Hidden Wonders of the Digital World: Lord of The Rings Online
You could live in LOTRO's The Shire. (All screencaps by Eric Grundhauser) Visiting Middle Earth is every fantasy fan’s (sometimes literal) dream. To J.R.R. Tolkien, the setting and cartography of his...
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Fleeting Wonders: The 25th Ig Nobel Prizes, Celebrating Scientific Silliness
Chemistry Ig Nobel winner Javier Morales gets interrupted by Miss Sweetie Poo in 2009. Morales and his cohort discovered a way to turn tequila into diamonds. (Photo: Eric Workman/Improbable Research)...
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The Self-Made Castaway Who Spent 16 Years on an Atoll With His Cats
Anchorage Island on Suwarrow Atoll. (Photo: Suwarrow/Creative Commons)The phrase "sole survivor" evokes scenes of violent disaster—a plane crash; an explosion in a mine; the eruption of a volcano whose...
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Polywater, the Soviet Scientific Secret That Made the World Gulp
Water demonstrates a few of its unique properties. (Photo: Jonas Bergsten/WikiCommons Public Domain)In the pantheon of chemical compounds, water is our Zeus. Its properties make it well-suited for...
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The Unsolved Case of the Attempted Assassination of Pope John Paul II
The site of the 1981 Pope John Paul II assassination attempt (Photo: Public Domain)It was late afternoon on May 13th 1981 when Pope John Paul II emerged from St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, ready...
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FOUND: An Extremely Rare Andean Cat
The Andean cat (Photo: CONAF/Andean Cat Alliance)Earlier this month, rangers looking through footage from camera traps in a Chilean nature reserve encountered a surprise sight: an Andean cat and her...
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Secret Missionaries and Smuggled Bibles: China's Religious Boom
Perhaps this boy is headed to church? (Photo: Tauno Tõhk / 陶诺 /flickr)Xiao Xue is a young woman from the countryside in Henan Province, central China. Ten years ago, she migrated to the city of Tianjin...
View Article100 Wonders: The Everlasting Lightning Storm
The sky above this river never sleeps. Producing 3,600 flashes per hour, for 10 hours at a time, for most nights out of the year, the "Relampago del Catatumbo," has been raging, on and off, for as long...
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The 1980s Book Series That Literally Claimed It Had To Be Read To Be Believed
Making the mysteries of the Mysteries of the Unknown known. (Image: Youtube)Turn on just about any channel of American TV between 1987 and 1991, and there was a pretty good chance you would be treated...
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How a Fake Typhus Epidemic Saved a Polish City From the Nazis
A glimpse of WWII Poland. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) During World War II, a man went to the doctor in Rozwadów, Poland with a unique complaint. He was one of thousands of Poles forced by the Nazi...
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FOUND: $1,300 in a Domino's Box
What's inside? (Photo: Junk Food Living/Flickr)On a Friday night, Mike Vegas, a bartender in California, ordered from Domino's—pizza and wings for dinner. He accepted the delivery, ate a slice of...
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Fleeting Wonders: Lightning Strikes Ocean, Nearby Man Claims Superpowers
Getting struck by lightning seems like a one-in-a-million occurrence (it’s actually more like 1/12,000), even for a lightning photographer. But the much more common occurrence of lightning striking the...
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FOUND: A Mystery Fruit
The fruit in question (Photo: Screenshot via KAKE-TV)In Winfield, Kansas, one community gardener planted cherry tomatoes in her garden, and, as the season progressed was surprised to see one of the...
View ArticleFleeting Wonders: Water on Fire
Workers drilling a well in Shanghai, China a few weeks ago noticed a miraculous sight: fire dancing on the surface of the well water.The water, bubbling up from 200 feet underground, was ignited when a...
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How a Concentration Camp Survivor and an American Huckster Created the Magic...
A still from "Flower Magic," a recent Miracle-Gro ad. (Image: Miracle Gro/YouTube)Wander through the gardening section of pretty much any department store and you'll see the same color combo lining...
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