Life during three months of polar night

Touring the northernmost brewery in the world

Svalbard Brewery is located in the Arctic village of Longyearbyen—in a region known for polar bears, reindeer, and miles of uninhabited frozen tundra—and caters to a diverse, international clientele who appreciate the beer's unique ingredient: 2,000-year-old glacier water.

Journey through Norway’s frozen frontier

This 44-minute video takes viewers through the Arctic landscapes of Norway, as they learn about the area’s life and challenges. Viewers can observe the wildlife that thrives in this harsh setting—from reindeer and polar bears to red foxes. They...

Lack of sunlight during Arctic winters can fuel a winter slump and a circadian disconnect

Sunlight typically tells our brain to stop producing melatonin, a hormone that makes us sleepy, but in dark Arctic winters humans must adapt to life without much sunlight. Scientists in this video provide tips that include trying to increase the amount of light around you, even if it’s just table lamps.

A day in the coldest village on Earth

The people of Yakutia, a far northern region of Russia, live a challenging, but harmonious, life with nature, facing some of the world's coldest temperatures. Tag along for the day with 9-year-old Arian and his family to see how they manage the cold, from constant wood-chopping to keep their home warm to the meticulous ice fishing which sustains their diet.

Living side by side: The people and polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba

This article spotlights life in Churchill, Manitoba, where residents and polar bears coexist in close proximity. Churchill has a "polar bear jail" that keeps bears that wander into town before they are relocated. Safety features like a unique radar...

Aurora-related activities drive significant tourism in regions near the Arctic Circle

As the peak solar cycle approached from late 2024 to early 2026, airlines serving countries such as Iceland, Finland, and Canada increased their scheduled flights, with direct flights to Tromsø, Norway, doubling since 2018. The northern lights tourism market has grown about 10% per year and is expected to increase from $941.9M in 2024 to $1.648B in 2030.

Unlike other bears, polar bears do not hibernate

They do not need to wait out winter because they can find enough food in the Arctic winter, using sea ice as hunting grounds. Pregnant polar bears may be mistaken for hibernating while they den for months at a time.

Muslims fasting in Iceland face more than 20 hours of daylight during summer Ramadan

In countries near the Arctic Circle, Ramadan's rule of fasting from sunrise to sunset can cause some unique challenges for the extended periods of daylight in the region. Icelandic Muslims have developed pragmatic workarounds—some follow the hours of Mecca, others adjust locally. It's an edge case that illuminates how a 7th-century practice gets negotiated across radically different geographies.

Dinosaurs thrived in the Arctic year round

The Arctic in the Cretaceous Period was a rough place to live, especially in winter. And yet, the fossils of many kinds of dinosaurs have been discovered there. So how were they able to survive in this harsh environment?

Search for psychrotolerant and psychrophilic microorganisms found in Antarctica

Developed following a five-week expedition to the southern continent, "Life Under the Ice" allows users to examine a petri-dish-like microscopic world and uncover recordings of organisms that can withstand, or even thrive, in the harsh environment.

The 300-million-year period where Earth looked like a snowball

Life has existed on Earth for at least 3 billion years, but the planet has not always looked like it does today. Rather than the blues and greens of our modern globe, for a 300 million-year period, the Earth was covered in ice and snow, from the poles to the equator. Surprisingly, life was thriving at the time.

Norse Yule solstice rituals inspired many modern Christmas decorations

Scandinavian Vikings celebrated Yule during the winter solstice, burning massive, decorated logs to protect their homes and ensure good harvests, while hoping for the sun's return. The festival included evergreens, mistletoe, holly, and ivy.

Instabilities in the polar jet stream can bring cold Arctic air southward

The polar jet stream marks the boundary between mid-latitude air and the much colder polar air, which are normally contained by the polar vortex—a ring of strong winds that circles the Arctic around 16 to 50 kilometers (10 to 30 miles) above the Earth's surface. Climate change may be responsible for "blocking patterns" that distort the jet stream, allowing polar air to leak into lower latitudes.

Why parts of the Earth are colder when the planet is closer to the Sun

The Earth orbits the Sun in an elliptical shape, and winter in the Northern Hemisphere occurs when the Earth reaches the point in its orbit closest to the Sun, known as perihelion. The lower temperatures result from the hemisphere tilting away from the Sun.

Who discovered the North Pole?

In 1909, papers reported two separate expeditions had become the first to reach the North Pole. This podcast explores the fascinating and terrifying attempts to reach the remote marker, and the contentious race to become the first person to plant...

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

See South Korea's nighttime light usage, far surpassing North Korea's

You can tell a lot about a place by looking at satellite imagery of the earth at night. Economists use such images to study poverty and inequality, especially about secretive countries where it can be difficult to get information any other way. An image from NASA’s Earth Observatory shows the difference in electrification between North and South Korea (and the lights illuminating the DMZ are visible from space).

Tardigrades typically live between 3 and 30 months

While avoiding predators, including other tardigrades, nematodes, snails, mites and some fungi, these organisms feed on decaying plant matter and cellular fluid, which they access by puncturing cell walls with their stylets—spear-like structures within their mouths.

Can coral live in cold water?

Dive deep beyond the sunlit coral reefs, and you'll discover a world of deep-sea corals. This article from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) explores the ecosystems of deep-sea corals found way below the water's surface....

The lost medieval habit of 'two sleeps'

While most people accept a single seven-to-nine-hour nightly slumber is ideal, the approach is a relatively modern idea. For centuries, interrupted sleep was the norm, with historians uncovering descriptions of two periods of sleep during the normal 24-hour cycle.

Null Island: the most real fictional island you can almost visit

This article explores Null Island, which can be found on most maps at exactly 0° latitude and 0° longitude. If someone were to paddle out to those coordinates, they'd find themselves in front of a buoy named Soul off the west coast of Africa. User...

Once a year, Bali goes completely silent

Every March, the Indonesian island of Bali halts all commerce, travel, and recreation for a day of silence called Nyepi. This cultural ritual purges the island of evil spirits like ego and greed.

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.

The Polaris Dawn was a privately crewed spaceflight

SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule Resilience spent five days in low Earth orbit as part of the first of three planned missions under the name Polaris Dawn. The historic journey took participants farther away from our planet than anyone has been since the Apollo missions.

Working as a mall elf is not always merry

Humorist David Sedaris’s classic radio piece on his time working as Crumpet the Elf at Santaland in a Macy’s revealed a darker side of Christmas, filled with tantrums and fights. First broadcast in 1992, Santaland Diaries was Sedaris’s breakout story, and NPR has annually aired the story ever since.

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

The final shots of the Civil War were fired in the Arctic over 2 months after the South's surrender

In June 1865—two months after Lee's surrender—the Confederate raider CSS Shenandoah unknowingly attacked Union whaling ships in the Arctic. When the crew learned the war was over, they sailed 9,000 miles to surrender in Liverpool, England.

The disparity in life expectancy between wealthy and impoverished nations has notably narrowed

In 1950, people in Norway lived to age 72, on average, while those in Mali lived to just 26. By 2015, the countries with the worst conditions had made such significant progress that the global average life expectancy had surpassed the rate of any nation in 1950.

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Coral polyps reproduce via broadcast spawning, where entire reefs simultaneously release reproductive cells for about one hour, once a year.

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

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

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

About 12.5% of US adults experience a phobia in their lifetime, a diagnosis that hinges on the intense fear interfering with daily life and persisting for at least six months.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

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.

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.

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.