Nearly all natural rubber comes from cloned trees in Southeast Asia

Synthetic biology can prevent extinction by creating create disease-resilient plants and animals

Through gene editing and the deployment of artificial cells, scientists can leverage learnings from the genetic sequencing of animals with known resistances to protect endangered species. Gene editing of certain species, such as mosquitoes, can also reduce their ability to spread diseases like malaria between humans.

As of 2025, perfect synthetic replication of natural organs remains elusive

Advancements such as 3D printing muscles, performing vaginal reconstruction with colon tissue, and growing organs in a lab have shown promise, but artificial options and transplanting substitutions continue to exhibit functional and performance limitations compared to their natural equivalents.

Plastics don’t biodegrade because their chemical bonds are unnatural to microbes

Despite coming from petroleum, which itself comes from organic material, synthetic plastic was not mass-produced until the mid-20th century. Insufficient time has passed for microbes to develop the necessary enzymes to break it down naturally.

View a sample of objects surprisingly derived from crude oil, including chewing gum and lipstick

Crude oil processing produces a variety of fuels and the building blocks for plastics, but it also distills out the hydrocarbons used to make aspirin, Teflon, vinyl, crayons, candles, Tupperware, roofing shingles, asphalt pavement, hair dye, anesthetics, food-grade lubricants, polyester, synthetic rubber, and resins for items like dentures.

Henry Ford once ran a failed rubber plantation in Brazil's Amazon Rainforest

In 1927, Henry Ford bought 2.5 million acres of land off the Amazon River in Brazil, with the intention of creating an American-style Ford factory to produce the rubber needed for tires. The development, known as Fordlandia, was never able to produce enough rubber, and Fordlandia was officially shut down in 1945.

See how artificial Christmas trees are made

Modern artificial Christmas trees are built from bent steel frames and PVC plastic. The plastic is cut into strips and shredded to mimic the needles of an evergreen tree. See the factory process of these mass-produced holiday mainstays.

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

Nearly all of China's construction sand is artificial

Roughly 50 billion tons of sand are used in construction every year, mostly extracted from oceans, beaches, and rivers. To avoid depleting natural sand deposits, China crushes rocks and used materials to create an artificial sand, which it uses in 80% of its construction projects.

Since the 1990s, banks have sold some of the credit risk of their accounts to external investors, known as SRTs, or synthetic risk transfers

This means if the account defaults, the outside investors assume most of the risk in return for some regular payments, freeing up the bank's ledger. It is a form of insurance used by banks to allow them to free up capital. In 2024, nearly $100B worth of SRT notes were sold.

The ginkgo tree is a living fossil that has not changed in over 200 million years

Having outlived the dinosaurs, the tree has no living relatives as the only surviving species of the genus Ginkgo. Its growth in undisturbed environments, pollution resistance, and foul-smelling seeds may have contributed to its survivability.

Tree rings can reveal centuries of environmental change and natural events

The width and shape of tree rings reflect yearly growth conditions like rainfall or snowfall. Scars in the rings can record disruptions such as fires, avalanches, or earthquakes, explaining when and how those events occurred.

Learn about the violent history of the nutmeg industry

From the 1600s to the 1860s, the Dutch East India Company enslaved thousands of people on the Banda Islands, the world's only nutmeg source, forcing them to work on plantations under a system unlike anything seen in the Caribbean or American South.

Even in nature reserves, climate change is driving rapid ecological collapse

Studies show a dramatic decline in insect populations, resulting in cascading global biodiversity losses across non-insect species. The balances in tropical ecosystems are the most affected by climate change.

Why the abundance of RuBisCO in photosynthetic cells may come from its inefficiency

Despite pulling about 115 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to build organic molecules each year, the enzyme instead binds oxygen at least one in five times, needlessly costing cells energy. To compensate for this and its processing of no more than 10 molecules per second—versus thousands processed by a typical enzyme—it's become the most abundant enzyme on Earth.

Artificial coral reefs have been 3D printed from nontoxic, biodegradable terracotta clay, which coral polyps have used as a foundation for rebuilding marine ecosystems.

Look up where your generic prescription drugs are made

This project from investigative journalism outlet ProPublica compiled source data for most generic prescription drugs in the US. Roughly 90% of drugs on the market are generic, and in rare cases investigators have noted issues with compliance or safety at some plants. Using your drug's name and the company on the label, find out any issues with your drugs here.

Some synthetic diamonds are purposely made with defects for new technologies

Grown in plasma-filled chambers or reactors where pressures reach 800,000 pounds per square inch, diamonds can develop properties like electrical conductivity and magnetic field sensitivity through exposure to elemental impurities or removal of some of their carbon atoms.

Rain-catching tubes provide new hydropower source for tropical regions

An experiment in Singapore showed that charge separation could be established by rainwater flowing through narrow tubes. The separation, which creates a voltage, could be scaled up in regions of high rainfall to provide a clean energy source.

Ticks are extremely hard to kill

These arachnids can transmit more than a dozen diseases to humans, and they're very resilient: Some can survive extreme heat and cold, live for years without a blood meal, and even survive multiple days underwater.

Less than 0.1% of the approximately 20,000 known bee species make honey

The majority of honeybee species originate in South and Southeast Asia, with the largest—Apis laboriosa—found almost exclusively in the Himalayas. The smallest is the black dwarf honeybee, Apis andreniformis, which inhabits tropical and subtropical regions of the continent.

Merck developed MDMA in the early 1900s as part of its effort to create a blood clotting drug

The company's chemists were attempting to synthesize a substance that could compete with an existing patent for the best clot medicine of that time, hydrastinine. MDMA was the byproduct of that effort.

Some renewable energy sources may weaken the resiliency of electric grids by removing outage buffers provided by coal- and natural gas-fired plants, which provide the system with more time to find a new power source if a plant goes down.

Distinguishing between natural and artificial, or induced, radioactivity

Naturally occurring radioactivity comes from radioactive elements underground, cosmic radiation from the sun and other objects in space, and radioactive atoms that make up the molecules we breathe, eat, and drink. Artificial radioactivity is predominantly generated for medical applications and industrial activities.

Scientists testing how climate change affects plants found, in a years-long simulation study, that poison ivy grew 70% faster with the resulting extra carbon dioxide.

Colored paint lines on new tires mark different types in the factory

Each stripe helps warehouse workers and distributors identify tire types at a quick glance. This innovation became important a century ago as manufacturers scaled operations and developed distinct product lines.

Tornadoes, or twisters, have been seen on every continent but Antarctica

Because tornadoes require rising warm air to form, some meteorologists have suggested that urban environments—locations where human landscape modification has introduced materials that trap thermal energy—can enhance the conditions needed for tornado formation. Tornadoes have been reported to cause ear "popping" due to drastic changes in air pressure.

What are rare earth elements?

Rare earth metals are 17 elements in the periodic table critical for modern technologies like electronics and defense systems. Although the US once led in their production, it now faces significant challenges in competing with China’s lower costs and control of over 70% of the global output.

The Chinese market for donkey hides has created a new source of diseases

Since 1992, China’s donkey population has dropped more than 80 percent. This report examines how China’s booming demand for a traditional medicine known as e-jiao, made from collagen from donkey hides, is leading to the slaughter of 6 million African donkeys annually, and providing a new source for zoonotic diseases.

A Tiger economy typically describes a booming Southeast Asian country

The term “tiger economy” has been used over the last several decades to describe a developing country experiencing rapid economic growth, often due to developing export-oriented industries and/or financial markets. The term was originally applied to Southeast Asian economies, including South Korea’s, and has since been used to describe Ireland, the Baltics, and Dubai.

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.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

About 2,000 US babies are born annually without some portion of their limbs, potentially leading to a lifetime of pricey prosthetics.

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

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.

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.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

Fear or disgust related to clusters of holes and cracks, called trypophobia, may stem from evolutionary processes to help us avoid pathogens.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

Tattoos remain visible on your skin thanks to immune cells called macrophages

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

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 can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

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.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.