The tiny Japanese village responsible for the world's best turntable needles

Japan is home to the world's only geothermal steam dye workshop

The Hachimantai Geothermal Dyeing Workshop sees artisans and visitors use volcanic steam to fix dyes and add gradations to patterns, creating tie-dyed handkerchiefs and mini-scarves.

The Juke 8 was the world's first karaoke machine

Daisuke Inoue invented the machine in 1971 by combining an amplifier, microphone, and 8-track machine, though he never patented it and, as a result, never collected royalties from the billion-dollar industry.

Woven City at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan

The Woven City at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan is a ‘living laboratory’ for new technologies. It is being developed by Toyota subsidiary, Woven Planet, and will be the world’s first programmable city.

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

A Harvard radio station once dedicated 24 hours to Jandek

The enigmatic singer-songwriter plays atonal dirges that are haunting or horrible, depending on your taste. He has self-released over 120 albums but rarely performs live, preferring to conceal his true identity. In 2003, a Harvard radio station aired the "Jandek Orgy," which included his fans debating his identity, lyrics, and philosophy.

Japan train station names cat stationmaster

The story behind the little Scottish village in the Italian Alps

High in the Italian Alps is Gurro, a small village with a distinct Scottish flair that can be found in its food, clothing, language, and music. At first glance, it may seem like a curiosity, but, as one resident explains in this short video documentary, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for how an Italian town became known as a Scottish hamlet.

The mesmerizing harmonies of Georgia's 'singing village' feast

Listen along to a polyphonic feast in Georgia known as a Supra. The event is a long-held tradition in the "singing village" of Lakushdi, featuring intricate, stunning musical harmonies sung by attendees and performers. Learn how the singing is learned and performed and participate in the feast from afar with this fascinating podcast.

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

Japanese horror is often more psychological than its Western counterpart

One of the country’s most famous directors is Masaki Kobayashi, who won a Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival. Unlike his Western peers, Kobayashi’s films avoid jump scares or gratuitous gore, opting instead for slow-burning psychological explorations that are just as terrifying.

Find decades of Hanukkah stories to listen to

For over 30 years, National Public Radio has broadcast its Hanukkah Lights series, a collection of original fiction that relates to the holiday. Here, you’ll find a repository of listeners’ favorite past tales, going back decades.

Why Japan builds airports on water

Some of Japan's roughly 100 airports are built on water—that is, engineers have created new land in bodies of water specifically to construct airports. This six-minute video explains why the country is doing so despite the higher cost of such airports.

Shenzhen, China is known as the 'Silicon Valley of Hardware'

The "Silicon Valley of Hardware" is a major manufacturing hub. This WIRED documentary from 2016 does a deep dive into how this Chinese city's practice of copycat manufacturing alongside its innovative culture has made it China's own Silicon Valley.

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.

Kansas has been home to the Museum of Deaf History, Arts & Culture since 2001

The Museum of Deaf History, Arts and Culture—a small, independent museum—documents discrimination against the deaf and the unique culture and history of people with hearing loss in the US.

Nine eyewitness accounts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors

Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki became the first cities in history to be hit with nuclear weapons, where tens of thousands of civilians were killed nearly instantly. Hundreds of thousands of people who survived the bombings—referred to as hibakusha—dealt with wounds, radiation poisoning, and alienation from a society unable to process what had happened. This collection of accounts lets nine of those survivors speak, including one of the 165 survivors of both bombings.

The unexpected origin story of the snow globe

In 1900, a Vienna tradesman named Erwin Perzy I was attempting to invent an inexpensive way to improve light amplification in hospital operating rooms. After experimenting with a glass globe filled with water, the idea for the snow globe struck. Industrious as well as inventive, Perzy eventually turned his idea into a successful business. Read the full article to learn how the invention grew to become recognized globally.

Funazushi takes 3 years to prepare

Funazushi is a type of honnare (sometimes spelled hon-nare or called narezushi) sushi. Unlike nigirizushi, the quicker form that's commonly found in restaurants, honnare is preserved over a long stretch of time. Mariko Kitamura, who runs a funazushi shop in Takashima City, Japan, describes the dish as a "fish version of prosciutto" with a saltiness that's similar to caviar.

England's Stoke-on-Trent was a hub for ceramics

The area of Staffordshire was a major production center for over 300 years, exporting pottery from brands like Wedgwood across the globe.

How the Grammy Awards are made

The Grammy Awards aren’t just trophies—they’re handcrafted works of art. Since 1959, each Grammy has been meticulously made from a custom metal alloy called “grammium.” From its origins to the process behind every award, here’s a look at the craftsmanship behind music’s most prestigious honor.

Explore the components of the linear particle accelerator at Los Alamos

Located at the site of bomb design and development for the Manhattan Project, LANSCE features an injector system for hydrogen ions, a series of tanks with alternating electric fields for proton acceleration, and an isotope production facility that creates radioisotopes for medical treatments.

Eating KFC is a Christmas tradition in Japan

Since a 1974 marketing campaign, eating KFC on Christmas has become a nationwide custom in Japan. Families place orders weeks in advance, and the holiday accounts for nearly a third of KFC Japan's total yearly sales.

The world of products surrounding tennis great Novak Djokovic

Novak Djokovic holds the most singles grand slam titles for men in history at 24. As a proud Serbian, the people of his smaller country take a special pride in Djokovic, and many of his family members and community have taken to using his name to develop products, from restaurants to cheese and wineries. This quick article breaks down Novak's role (or lack of) in those efforts.

World War II soldiers received specially-made vinyl records

"V-Discs" were vinyl records featuring popular folk, classical, and jazz songs. This was one of the first widespread uses of vinyl, rather than shellac, records.

Mosquito necroprinting uses an insect's mouthpart as the printer nozzle

Mosquitoes are abundant, and their nozzles are 32-100 times cheaper to harvest than to create from scratch out of metal or glass. By coating the organic nozzle to increase its strength, researchers are employing necroprinting to create tiny structures at better resolutions than commercial alternatives.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Shohei Ohtani's interpreter allegedly stole $16M for gambling debts

Ippei Mizuhara first met Shohei Ohtani during the two-way star’s rookie year in Japan. Ten years later, Mizuhara, who had become a trusted friend and confidant to Ohtani, is alleged to have stolen $16M from his employer to repay gambling debts.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

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

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

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.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Hookworm infection, though risky, may help fight certain autoimmune conditions by tamping down the immune system's inflammatory response.

Ebola species have historically been named after where they were discovered, stigmatizing residents who live there, including Bundibugyo, in Uganda.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

How Amazon operates a 'flywheel' business model, a self-reinforcing cycle that drives continuous growth

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

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

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

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

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