Science & Technology

Explore an interactive map of volcanoes, earthquakes, and tsunamis from 2150 BCE to the present.

The internet is not what you see when navigating online—that's the World Wide Web, which is supported by hardware called the internet.

Crude oil can be sweet, sour, heavy, or light depending on its density and chemical composition.

About 50 billion to 70 billion cells intentionally die in the average adult human body every day.

Bill Nye accidentally became 'the Science Guy' when filling the time left by a canceled guest on a sketch comedy show.

Synthetic pheromones may protect coral reefs by attracting their sea star predators to a designated area for mass removal.

Explore an interactive breakdown of a wind turbine's components and how they work together to convert wind energy into electricity.

The 'dirty side' of a hurricane is where the likelihood of tornadoes, storm surges, and flooding is greatest.

Explore an interactive visualization of known satellites and space debris currently in low Earth orbit.

Auroras produce crackling, popping, and rustling sounds, according to anecdotal reports from people in Arctic regions, though scientists have dismissed these claims.

Some sharks can hear underwater sounds up to 74 meters (243 feet) away and identify the direction of the source.

Algae are responsible for about half of Earth's atmospheric oxygen and can capture carbon dioxide at rates up to 50 times faster than land-based plants.

Tsunamis are caused by a massive volume of water being suddenly displaced, as occurs when the seafloor shifts due to geological events such as earthquakes.

CRISPR allows scientists to precisely cut out and replace faulty or unwanted DNA to help treat genetic disorders.

Google fired proton beams at its AI chips to see whether they could survive five years of cosmic radiation in orbiting data centers

If the universe continues to expand forever, as current cosmological models suggest, it will eventually reach heat death, becoming a cold, dark, and empty void.

There are about 3 trillion trees on Earth, research suggests—a number larger than the amount of stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

In the absence of air resistance—as occurs in a vacuum chamber—all objects fall at the same rate.

Swimming in a pool of spent nuclear fuel is safe, as long as you don't drink the water or touch radioactive waste.

The seafloor contains hundreds of brine pools—underwater lakes that are many times saltier than the surrounding ocean and lethal to most marine creatures.

The strong nuclear force prevents most atoms from spontaneously breaking apart, even though protons in the nucleus repel one another.

Linux and other open-source software can still be safe and secure because they enable many individuals to actively monitor and review publicly available source code.

Kryptos is a long-unsolved cryptographic sculpture—a piece of art with encoded messages—located outside the CIA's headquarters.

View a gallery of bioluminescent organisms, including snails, worms, fungi, jellyfish, and mushrooms.

With the original lost following its submission for publication, Albert Einstein reauthored his manuscript on special relativity for a World War II bond rally.

Watch a scientifically accurate visualization of cell division, which involves a molecular motor that spins as fast as a jet engine.

To fight invasive species, some people have harvested them to produce useful materials that can be sold for a profit.

Nuclear batteries generate electricity by capturing energy released from the decay of radioactive elements, rather than from splitting atoms.

The James Joyce novel 'Finnegans Wake' inspired the naming of quarks—fundamental particles that combine in triplets to form protons and neutrons.

Random positioning machines simulate the weightlessness of space, allowing researchers on Earth to study how space affects living things.

Dark energy is the placeholder term for the unknown mechanism that has been causing accelerated expansion of the universe for about five billion years.

Explore an interactive gallery detailing the water footprint of producing various proteins, fruits, vegetables, and other commodities.

Kelvin waves are planetary-scale redistributions of warm water and energy deep beneath the ocean's surface that can raise sea levels by several inches for weeks.

Take a look at an animated overview of 12 fundamental algorithm types and their uses.

View a fall foliage prediction map to estimate the progressive change in the color of leaves throughout the US from September to mid-November.

View a gallery of microscopic images of butterfly wings, revealing colorful layers of scales, hairs, and metallic-looking structures.

Although data breaches sometimes result from hackers exploiting software vulnerabilities, users can take various steps to protect themselves online, including using multifactor authentication.

In addition to the cross-breeding techniques humans have used for thousands of years, organisms with novel genetic makeups can be produced by inserting DNA from other species.

Developing a red pigment that is vivid, durable, and nontoxic is challenging because its necessary absorption of other, high-energy colors would cause it to degrade.

In the 'block universe' model—a consequence of the special theory of relativity—the past, present, and future exist simultaneously, suggesting free will is an illusion.

In the 1910s, physicists proved that the existing laws of physics made it impossible for solid magnets to exist—a finding overturned by quantum mechanics.

Named after the Ancient Greek term for 'eight-footed,' octopuses have eight, suction-filled arms, not tentacles—the latter only feature suckers at their tips.

Fossils from the Carboniferous period show that insects reached their largest size about 300 million years ago, long thought possible due to higher atmospheric oxygen concentrations.

Convert anything you draw into a system of epicycles to visualize the discrete Fourier transform.

When something falls, it accelerates until its weight is balanced by the drag force, at which point it reaches its terminal velocity.

Known as the corpse flower for smelling like rotting meat, Rafflesia is the world's largest flower and a parasite that lives off a host vine.

In 2018, hours before his 13th birthday, Jackson Oswalt became the youngest person to achieve nuclear fusion.

Marie Curie's research on radioactivity made her the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person to win awards in two sciences.

Despite working with chimpanzees, Jane Goodall's self-described mascot was a plush monkey named Mr. H, which symbolized unyielding human resilience.

Explore an interactive map of over 300,000 Flock devices in the continental US, as of December 2025.