The ferocious predatory dinosaurs of Cretaceous Sahara
In Cretaceous times (around 100 million years ago), North Africa was home to a huge river system and a bizarre menagerie of giant prehistoric predators — including the Spinosaurus, a dinosaur even more...
View ArticleEighty Years of New York City, Then and Now – The New Yorker
From The New Yorker, enjoy this split-screen juxtaposition of New York City in the 1930s and today. Cross the Brooklyn Bridge, tour Central Park, see huge differences in midtown and Times Square, get a...
View ArticleSara Berman’s Closet
“And here we are, in the midst of elaborate trappings, of elaborate lives: An illumination of how important a modest life can be. This closet, all lined up with military precision and loving care,...
View ArticleThe Squid and the Whale: Evidence for an Epic Encounter
One of the most famous dioramas in the American Museum of Natural History depicts a battle between two gigantic animals: the sperm whale and giant squid. But unlike most dioramas in the Museum’s halls,...
View ArticleHow Does It Grow? Blueberries
Wild blueberries are native to the Americas, from forests in the Andes Mountains northward to the Arctic tundra. They were an important part of the food, culture, and medicinal practices of North...
View ArticleCasdoce (カスドース), a confection made for lords & emperors
Traditional castella sponge cakes, introduced to Japan by Portuguese merchants circa 1550, are cut precisely into bite-sized pieces before they’re soaked in bright yellow egg yolks and boiled in a...
View ArticleHumphry Davy’s Potassium Volcano
Humphry Davy is one of the best know men of science of the nineteenth century. He isolated nine different chemical elements, was the first person to inhale nitrous oxide and invented the miner’s safety...
View ArticleThe rise and fall of the Berlin Wall
On August 13, 1961, construction workers began tearing up streets and erecting barriers in Berlin. This night marked the beginning of one of history’s most infamous dividing lines: the Berlin Wall....
View ArticleWhy is syrup sticky?
Water isn’t sticky, and sugar on its own isn’t sticky either. So why is syrup—a heated, melty combination of water and sugar—so very, very sticky? Emily Elert of MinuteEarth explains the sticky...
View ArticleWhy America still uses Fahrenheit
Since I’ve moved to the US in 2010, there’s one thing that I still don’t fully understand: the imperial system. Virtually every country on earth uses Celsius but America has yet to follow. Although it...
View ArticleVoyager at 40: Humanity’s ambitious expedition into interstellar space
On August 20, 1977, NASA launched the Voyager 2 space probe, following it with Voyager 1‘s launch on September 5th, 1977. Together, the two spacecrafts are one of humanity’s most ambitious expeditions...
View ArticleHow balloons are made – The Magic of Making
How are balloons made? In this video from The Magic of Making, a series of short films for kids created in partnership with with BBC Worldwide, we begin with a history lesson about Kew Gardens and...
View ArticleWhere do new words come from? – TED Ed
There are over 170,000 words currently in use in the English language. Yet every year, about a thousand new words are added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Where do they come from, and how do they...
View ArticleMarta Minujín’s ‘Parthenon’ of Banned Books in Kassel
In Kassel, Germany, at the very site where Nazis once burned over 2,000 books by Jewish and Marxist writers, one artist has built a colossal tribute to free speech. The “Parthenon of Books” is a giant...
View ArticlePostcards from Saturn: The incredible images that Cassini sent home
For over a decade, Cassini has orbited around Saturn 294 times, collected more than 600 GB of data, visited over a dozen moons and discovered at least seven new ones. It has sent over 400,000 images...
View ArticleHow many ways are there to prove the Pythagorean theorem?
What do Euclid, 12-year-old Einstein, and American President James Garfield have in common? They all came up with elegant proofs for the famous Pythagorean theorem, one of the most fundamental rules of...
View ArticleThe Challenge of a Straight Line and ‘Making Art Concrete’– Getty Museum
How might you paint a perfectly sharp and clean straight line without blobs of paint or an unsteady hand creating a visually uneven edge? In concert with the Getty Museum‘s exhibition “Making Art...
View ArticleJourney of a Letter: How a birthday card is sent and delivered in London
How does a letter find its way from where it’s written to the mailbox on the corner, to the post office, and out to the person it’s being sent to? London’s new Postal Museum shares this journey through...
View ArticleHow did Polynesian wayfinders navigate the Pacific Ocean?
Imagine setting sail from Hawaii in a canoe. Your target is a small island thousands of kilometers away in the middle of the Pacific Ocean — a body of water that covers more than 160 million square...
View ArticleThe mighty mathematics of the lever
Archimedes once said “Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the Earth.” While the idea of a person moving such a huge mass on their own might sound impossible, chances are you’ve seen this idea in...
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