Da Vinci’s ingenious self-supporting bridge

An architect explores da Vinci's quest to fly

This article follows Leonardo da Vinci's quest for human air flight, which he pursued in the late 1400s. Written by an architect, this piece details da Vinci's venture into the field of aviation, starting with his attempt to understand the flight...

How the Golden Gate Bridge was constructed

San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge is one of America's most iconic structures and is considered to be an engineering marvel. Built in 1930's, before the advent of modern construction technology, the structure was considered impossible by contemporary standards.

Fascinating 3D animation shows how Romans built roads

Highly efficient engineering and materials production allowed Roman administrators to lay down nearly 50,000 miles of roads across the ancient empire. These roads were built so effectively that many are still around today. Watch this quick 3-minute video to see how they did it.

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.

Watch the annual three-day revamp of the Q'eswachaka bridge

Rebuilt every year since the Inca empire, this bridge still is used today by locals who want to traverse the 120-foot-wide gorge that runs beneath it. This three-minute video shows just how much effort goes into its restoration.

Engineering tall structures requires managing wind, earthquakes, and other destabilizing factors

Reinforced concrete, energy dampers, braced frames, flexible structures, and aerodynamic decks were among the methods implemented when building structures such as the Shanghai Tower, the Texas Super Skyscraper, and the South Rangitīkei Viaduct.

Amateur engineers built America’s first great infrastructure project

With no engineering schools in the US, the Erie Canal was designed and built by self-taught amateurs who improvised new methods and became known as the “Erie School of Engineering.”

A look at some of the world's most unique churches

From a skeleton-adorned church in the Czech Republic to wooden churches built without nails in Russia, this video explores some of Christianity's most intriguing architectural feats. These places of worship were built in remote areas throughout history, and show amazing innovation. See a fascinating glimpse into the overlooked structures, along with stories of how and why they came to be.

A fascinating look at how our DNA is built and replicated

This easy-to-understand 13-minute video dives into the wondrous molecule deoxyribonucleic acid – also known as DNA – and explains how it replicates itself in our cells.

One Falls daredevil once made breakfast while tightrope walking over the gorge

In 1859, tightrope walker Jean François “The Great Blondin” stunned crowds by cooking and serving an omelet mid-walk across the Niagara Gorge.

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.

Sculpting the unrivalled stone, marble

Marble is considered the chief material for sculpture due to its intrinsic beauty, stemming from its white translucence which makes the light appear to come from the stone. In this video, sculptor Simon Smith recreates Donatello's 15th-century Prato Pulpit panel which still hangs on the outside of a church. Watch as he explains the painstaking process and reveals the beautiful final output.

In 1898, Nikola Tesla wowed a crowd by controlling a boat with no visible connection

Some onlookers thought it was a trick, such a a monkey being inside the boat, rather than mind control or some other metaphysical phenomenon. In reality, Tesla was pioneering radio waves, proving wireless control was possible.

How trees transport water from roots to leaves

Trees move water to their extremities via a deft system starting from the roots to the leaves. See how it works in this short video breaking down the process in a Douglas fir.

How to carry more than your own bodyweight

Those images showing a villager carrying an enormous bundle on their back, or balancing a basket of fish on their head—how's that possible? This article dives into the clever tools and habits of strength training some cultures employ as part of their labors, from the springy bamboos used by Vietnamese farmers to the headbound burdens of Himalayan sherpas.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Lasers have been used to create natural adhesives for paper

German researchers at four Fraunhofer institutes have developed a method to seal paper packaging using a carbon monoxide laser. Without the need for glue or plastic adhesives, the Papure project is expected to improve the recyclability of paper. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Greek-Egyptian scientist Heron invented automatic doors for a temple

The doors opened when a fire was lit in front of the temple, causing heat and pressure to build in a nearby vessel that would force its contents into a higher secondary vessel. This secondary vessel would lower, pulling the doors open. When the fire extinguished, the pressure and liquid in the vessel would reverse course, closing the temple doors.

What makes Nikola Jokic a basketball genius

Nikola Jokic is widely considered one of the greatest players in the NBA and this detailed exploration of his singular mind shows why, identifying Jokic’s superpower—viewing the court like a chessboard—and helpfully pulling out plenty of footage to definitively prove the point.

'I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.'

-Inventor and businessman Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

Many stories about George Washington are legends without evidence

The famous cherry tree story—where a young Washington admits, "I cannot tell a lie"—was created by biographer Mason Locke Weems. Washington's "wooden teeth" were also a myth: His dentures were made of ivory, metal, and animal teeth.

Ledgers—what are they good for?

It might seem strange that a ledger—a dull and practical document associated mainly with accounting—would be described as a revolutionary technology. But the blockchain matters because ledgers matter. Read (or listen to) this 14 minute breakdown on why ledgers matter.

Visualize the components of fireworks

This article provides animated diagrams depicting how different parts of fireworks function. The elements work together through timed mechanisms to produce desired effects.

The world's largest lemon battery was made from nearly 3,000 lemons

By connecting lemons with a piece of zinc on one side and a piece of copper on the other, a team from the Royal Society of Chemistry created a fruit battery with a capacity of 2,307.8 volts.

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.

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.

Famous Bigfoot footage stabilized using AI

Famous 1967 footage of a Sasquatch-like creature in a California forest has been stabilized using AI, clearly revealing the Bigfoot-esque creature to be a man in a suit.

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.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Watch how algorithms can be designed to train themselves and self-improve without human input, to the point where the optimized code is too complex for programmers to understand.

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

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

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

See how each of the more than two million known species relates to each other—and to common ancestors—in this zoomable tree of life.

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.

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

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

Ebola is a filovirus, meaning it resembles a thread under a microscope, though it sometimes twists and can resemble a bowl of spaghetti.

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

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.