Meet the bowerbird, the bird world's greatest architect

How birds are becoming research assistants

Through the creation of tiny sensors easily placed on their bodies, birds have served as research assistants for various scientists. With untold numbers of birds sending back data, researchers have achieved greater insights in long obscure areas of meteorology, ecology, and more. For example, weather scientists use high-flying birds to outline the height of the planetary boundary layer, while conservationists track gulls to protect migrating whales. Learn more here.

Photobombing bird nabs best wedding photo of the year

Just as groom-to-be started in on his vows in the beautiful setting of wild Whistler, Canada, a curious bird alighted upon his dear love's head, and photographer Tara Lilly captured what would become the year's best wedding photograph. See the shot and read the story here.

Explore a comprehensive encyclopedia of all known bird species and families

The "Birds of the World" collaborative ornithological platform combines millions of bird observation records with extensive information on more than 11,000 bird species, including their appearance, sounds, taxonomy, habitat, movements and migration, diet, breeding, behavior, and evolutionary histories.

Stunning shots of a singing red-winged blackbird

Photographer Kathrin Swoboda visits Huntley Meadows Park to photograph red-wing blackbirds singing. In 2019, she captured them emitting smoke-like rings from their beaks due to visible condensation in the cold. This serendipitous shot won the top prize at the Audubon Photography Awards that year, highlighting the unique phenomenon of birds' breath visible in chilly temperatures. Check out the photos here.

The real James Bond wasn't a spy—he was a birdwatcher

Ian Fleming needed a name for his spy protagonist and found it in a book about birds he was reading written by ornithologist James Bond. As Fleming's book series grew in popularity, the birdwatching Bond began to receive strange phone calls from fans looking for the fictional agent. This interview with writer Jim Wright explores that strange history, shedding light on more than a few Easter eggs in the Bond series.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

The world's weirdest flowers

We mostly marvel at the beauty of flowers, but some kinds of flowers are incredibly weird. This video highlights 15 of the world's strangest flowers, from the massive Titan Arum to the rare Lady Slipper Orchid.

Meet a 90-year-old who built his own hobbit-inspired house

A retired carpenter built himself a kind-of Hobbit house, and is living comfortably off the grid at 90 years old, tourists notwithstanding. Learn how he did it with this video.

An architect ranks the best bridges in the world

Architext Ezra Groskin builds bridges and argues that the best bridges do more than allow traffic. They should, he believes, encourage human interaction and lingering to ultimately become a destination of their own. Explore ten stunning designs that connect communities, from New York to Switzerland.

Everything to know about emus

Emus are flightless birds native to Australia, second only to ostriches in size among avians. Reaching up to six feet and weighing more than 100 pounds, the grayish-brown emu can run 30 mph, lives in small flocks, and travels widely for food and water as a nomad. Learn more about the emu's many delightful quirks in this irreverent and informative podcast.

What we can learn from how penguins express affection

Pebbling, a term used to describe small acts of love within a relationship, comes from penguins. Male gentoo penguins, a species of penguin that lives on sub-Antarctic islands, present pebbles to their potential mates later used to build nests. This small but helpful act is something we humans can learn from. Think of the “pebbles” you can share with loved ones on a daily basis.

Articulating weird memes

Some memes eschew established formats and references, creating new variants that resonate with scrollers through strange meta-jokes or compositions. This episode of this podcast, geared toward blind netizens, dives into some of the weird memes being shared online, such as one in which a pigeon sitting on a shoddy excuse for a nest, single egg forgotten, is meant to inspire comfort in those whose efforts have fallen short.

The fish can climb walls

Scientists in Brazil captured rare footage of bumblebee catfish climbing waterfalls. How they do it is clear, but why remains a mystery.

The Australian $5 bill has an image of a bird that glows when exposed to UV light

That’s just one of the many anti-counterfeiting security measures that the Australian government implements on its currency. Popular banknotes from around the world all include their own unique security features—this infographic outlines a few unique ones.

O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became symbols for her fiction

O'Connor was drawn to peacocks because of their dichotomy—people were drawn to the beauty of their feathers but turned off by the ugliness of their behavior. It was an apt symbol for her fiction and the birds featured prominently on several of her books' covers.

An invasive, tree-killing beetle may threaten large swaths of Australia

A Curtin University study warns that large parts of Australia, including major cities and farming regions, could be highly vulnerable to the fast-spreading polyphagous shot hole borer, which releases a fungus that can starve trees of nutrients. The tiny insect has already caused severe damage across the Perth metropolitan area.

The incredibly advanced engineering of the B-2 Bomber

B-2 Bombers are the world's most expensive plane, coming in at a cost of $2B per aircraft. There are roughly 20 in the world, all in use by the United States Air Force. They are known for their single-wing profile, allowing for stealth and the ability to transport some of the world's largest bombs.

Go inside a real beehive with this interactive

Beehives are where the magic honey-making happens, where thousands of honeybees beat their wings, throw up partially-digested nectar to further purify it into sugars, and make wax. The goings-on of a beehive—the name for a man-made habitat for...

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

Meet the Marree Man, one of the world's largest works of art

In the summer of 1998, a pilot flying over the Australian outback discovered a geoglyph 1.7 miles long featuring an aboriginal man hunting. The massive work of art is one of the world's largest.

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

Some female fireflies mimic the signals of other species to lure in and eat them

The genus Photuris does not produce its own defensive pheromones to ward off predators, so it has developed mimicry to attract males of firefly species that do. Unsuspecting males are consumed after these chemicals—lucibufagins—are extracted.

View some of the species named after David Attenborough

Acisoma attenboroughi is a dragonfly from Madagascar named in honor of Attenborough's 90th birthday. Stating they liked watching Attenborough's documentaries with their family, the discoverer of a flightless weevil from Indonesia named it Trigonopterus attenboroughi in 2014. A Peruvian frog was named Prisimantis attenboroughi in 2014 to honor Attenborough for raising awareness of wildlife conservation.

What Kitty Hawk looks like today, including a 60-foot memorial to the brothers

This short video surveys the flat, empty expanse near Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina’s barrier islands, highlighting the area’s attractive conditions for early flight. Also shown are the stone monument to the Wright’s and replica wooden shacks like the ones they lived in those fateful years.

The bats that live in and protect Portugal's libraries

Two 18th-century libraries in Portugal, the Joanina Library at the University of Coimbra and the Library at the National Palace of Mafra, are home to colonies of bats. These bats are welcome guests because they eat insects that could damage the manuscripts. Visitors can try to see the bats emerge at nightfall in Coimbra or visit on a rainy day and hear them. While catching a glimpse of the bats in Mafra is difficult, the library displays taxidermied remains of former residents.

Scientific advances have transformed understanding of Stonehenge’s builders

Techniques such as radiocarbon dating, DNA analysis, and isotopic testing have revised scholars' understanding of Stonehenge. This article presents evidence suggesting that societies were more cooperative and less violent than earlier theories had suggested.

Check out pictures from the Bauhaus' elaborate costume parties

Bauhaus is known for its innovation, but, at the end of the day, it was still an art school. That means parties were regular occurrences and often featured elaborate costumes—Gropius once dressed as the renowned architect Le Corbusier, while Kandinsky was known for pretending to be an antenna.

Bumble debuted its 'Bumble BFF' feature in 2016

Rather than helping users find romantic matches, Bumble BFF helps people make platonic, friendship introductions. The feature now operates as a standalone app, "Bumble for Friends," built on top of Geneva, a company that Bumble acquired in 2024.

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

See the 25 of the best photos of auroras from around the world.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Power lines are dotted with large, brightly colored balls to improve the visibility of these thin wires to helicopters and small planes and help prevent potential crashes.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

When caught in the mouths of cardinal fish, seed shrimp release glowing, bioluminescent chemicals, which alert predators of the cardinal fish, prompting the shrimp's ejection.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Scientists have struggled to pin down Ebola's natural reservoir species for decades, but the available evidence suggests that it's very likely fruit and insect-eating bats found in Africa.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.