Across the animal kingdom, mice are among the least efficient travelers, while the efficiency of human locomotion falls between that of a cow and a horse. (Paywall may apply.)

More than 80% of New York City's newsstands have closed in the past two decades, in part due to a series of price caps that hurt the stands' ability to evolve.

Explore an interactive timeline of the world's biggest data breaches and hacks, led by the 2024 National Public Data breach, which involved almost three billion stolen records, including full names and Social Security numbers.

Cartoonist Thomas Nast helped bring down Boss Tweed, one of America's most corrupt political bosses.

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, contends that children are losing the ability to pay attention as they spend half their lives perusing social media content designed to hook them.

Brown dwarfs are nicknamed 'failed stars' because, while much more massive than planets, they lack sufficient mass to initiate nuclear fusion in their cores and become stars.

Listen to Steve Jobs explain his 'rock tumbler' metaphor for teamwork.

Listen to audio clips from Hoover, a harbor seal named after its insatiable appetite, who learned to say English phrases such as 'hello there' and 'come over here.'

Oxygen is produced in the International Space Station from recycled water, which is split into hydrogen and oxygen gases using an electric current.

'Loud budgeting' is a budgeting strategy in which one practices being open with their peers about what they can and can't afford.

A 1981 wedding on 'General Hospital' drew 30 million viewers.

Find out how important you are to AI tools when they generate text responses with this tool, which estimates the weights of people's names.

Use this annuity income calculator to estimate how much money someone can expect in their annuity payouts, depending on factors such as how much they invest and how long they expect to be paid.

There are 'YouTube camps' that teach children how to create content for the video platform.

Disney initially pushed Pixar to make 'Toy Story' an edgy comedy that could appeal to adults.

AI tools that generate images, audio, video, and 3D models rely on diffusion models, which begin with random data, such as visual noise, and gradually refine it into the requested media.

Lake Sørvágsvatn sits about 32 meters (105 feet) above sea level, but the taller surrounding cliffs create an optical illusion that makes it appear to float much higher above the ocean.

The US has discontinued a variety of different currency denominations over the years—including a $100K bill.

Social media addiction, though not a clinical diagnosis, refers to the idea that infinite scroll, notifications, and algorithms override one's ability to stop using them.

American oceanographic cartographer Marie Tharp's discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which supported the idea that continents move over time, was initially dismissed as 'girl talk.'

Bitcoin, the oldest and most popular cryptocurrency, is a digital cash alternative introduced in 2009 that rapidly grew in popularity and now boasts a global user base.

Watch some of the best scenes from Mel Brooks' films, including 'Young Frankenstein,' 'Spaceballs,' 'Robin Hood: Men in Tights,' and more.

Hip-hop legends the Notorious BIG, Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, and DMX all attended the same New York high school.

Blue zones are geographic locations, such as Sardinia, Italy, where there have appeared to be disproportionately high numbers of healthy agers, perhaps due to factors including genetics, diet, social connections, and more.

Dolly Parton released her first recording at age 13, a rockabilly number she cowrote called 'Puppy Love.'

Monaco has the world's oldest population, with more than 36% of residents aged 65 or older, according to World Bank data.

Disney tried to adapt 'The Catcher in the Rye' for the screen, with plans to reimagine it as an animated film about German shepherds.

The collapse of gas bubbles in the joint synovial fluid causes 'cracking' knuckles.

Explore (and debunk) the world's most contagious misconceptions—from the 5-second rule to sugar rushes—on this interactive site. Click on each misconception for further evidence.

Although the moon passes between the sun and Earth monthly, its orbit is tilted by five degrees, preventing the planet from experiencing a solar eclipse each month.

Sacagawea's son, Jean Baptiste, who was born during the Lewis and Clark expedition, traveled to Europe as a duke's companion before returning to the American West.

See a breakdown of how some of the most common food items are traded across the globe, including the key trade relationships for each item.

Researchers generally group gut bacteria into six different categories, with varying amounts of these microbes residing in different parts of the digestive tract.

With sufficiently sensitive hearing and powerful equipment, if a source of music traveled past someone at twice the speed of sound, they would hear the music backward.

In 2025, the European Space Agency created the first artificial solar eclipse in space when one spacecraft cast a shadow onto another spacecraft to enable observations of the sun's outermost atmosphere.

Understand distinctions between coffee types and other popular cafe beverages with this visual guide.

The Lewis and Clark expedition purchased more than 260 separate items to supply their journey.

Santa Barbara's streets are slightly off-kilter because surveyors used rawhide—which contracts and shrinks with temperature fluctations—to plan them.

Dollar stores often place staple items at the back of the store so customers encounter other less-necessary items on their way there, leading to impulse buys.

Emerging research suggests that cannabis, used by about 9% of American adults as a sleep aid, may suppress rapid eye movement and lead to worse quality sleep and fewer remembered dreams. (Paywall may apply.)

Writers like Colleen Hoover and Emily Henry have propelled romance to become the most popular genre in publishing, generating over $1B annually.

This widely lauded historical fiction 13-episode podcast series covers the period following Lincoln's assassination, from the manhunt to the power struggle that gripped the US.

Chicago's Rookery Building, completed in 1888, is America's oldest skyscraper and was part of a campaign to rebuild the city after its Great Fire.

Nuclear power relies on chain reactions involving uranium-235, but because the isotope's concentration in natural ores is too low to sustain these reactions, enrichment is needed to produce more highly concentrated fuel.

View a timeline of NASA's Space Shuttle program, which saw five reusable orbiters take a total of 355 astronauts across a combined distance of almost six trips to the sun.

Watch a time-lapse of 3D printing two pairs of eyeglasses by layering plastic filament.

Writer Washington Irving was the first to call New York City 'Gotham,' referencing an Anglo-Saxon word for a village of fools.

Roger Banister was the first person to break the 4-minute mile, a feat he accomplished while he was enrolled in medical school.

Disney World's Magic Kingdom includes utilidors—an underground system of tunnels and passageways—to hide the park's maintenance operations.

During the Cold War, a mid-air fire led to a nuclear bomber crash in Greenland that left a piece of a hydrogen bomb missing to this day.