The robust wine production of Antarctica

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.

Santa Barbara County features seven designated wine regions

Grapes are notoriously fickle about where they grow and cannot be cultivated just anywhere. That’s what makes the county’s seven American Viticultural Areas so unique and cool—from the Santa Ynez valley to the Los Olivos District.

How glaciers melt

Greenland and Antarctica are home to most of the world’s glacial ice, including its only two ice sheets, making them areas of particular interest to scientists. Watch this three-minute video to learn why understanding them is not just interesting, but crucial to our near-term adaptability and our long term survival in a changing world.

What is orange wine?

You've heard of rosé, a so-called anomalous wine. But what about orange wine? Orange wine is made using white wine grapes and red wine production methods. This guide walks you through the history of these wines—now trendy in the global market after being produced for thousands of years in places like Georgia. It also explores the flavors typically found in orange wine and how to pair it with food.

Strict rules dictate the making of Champagne

Some regulations, such as geographical area and grape varieties, are fairly well known. But to be true Champagne, winemakers must follow guidelines for all sorts of finicky things, including pruning, press yield (how much juice is extracted from the grapes), alcohol content, vineyard management, and aging, among others.

Georgian wine and the qvevri method

What do we know about early viticulture? The earliest evidence of winemaking comes from the country of Georgia. More than 8,000 years ago, people began fermenting grapes in clay vessels called qvevri (pronounced kway-vree). Join Master of Wine Konstantin Baum for a video diving into the origins of winemaking in Georgia, exploring how that country's unique mix of climates and cultures made it the perfect place for wine to flourish.

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.

The non-alcoholic wine market

A no-nonsense, stats-based exploration of the relatively new market for nonalcoholic wine. Driven by people looking to consume less or no alcohol at all, production of nonalcoholic wine has increased dramatically over the last few years. This report details the basics of nonalcoholic winemaking, as well as the current state of the market and what to expect in the future.

How a deadly antarctic expedition turned poisonous

A deadly 1912 scientific expedition to the Antarctic took a turn for the worse when the expedition team's leader turned to man's best friend to fuel their journey. This 21-minute podcast episode provides a glimpse into the real-life dangers of...

A database of grape varieties

All wines are defined in part by the type of grapes used, whether a single grape or a blend. This encyclopedic archive of grape varieties and their respective attributes is an easy way to become acquainted with just about any wine grape out there—from Albariño to Zweigelt. It also includes brief introductions to non-wine alcoholic beverage categories like beer and hard seltzer.

The extremophilic origins of watermelon snow and its impact on glacial melting

Also known as "blood snow," the red coloration is produced by snow algae that thrive in extremely cold conditions and take the shape of red spherical cysts in winter. To protect themselves from more intense summer solar radiation, these psychrophiles accumulate red, orange, and yellow pigments, intensifying their coloration and causing glaciers to reflect less sunlight than if they were white.

Animal wines: Wine bottles with pigs on the label had the lowest median prices at $23.22

If you’ve ever spent too much time staring at a shelf in a wine store, you might have noticed something similar: animals, specifically, cats, pigs, or birds on the labels. So, what do these wines have in common? This interactive tool attempts to figure out what wines that include the same animal have in common.

How fermentation works

Alcoholic fermentation is the process where yeast transforms grape sugars into ethanol, creating wine. Microscopic fungi (commonly known as yeast) metabolize sugars, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide. Fermentation's speed and temperature impact wine's flavor and style: cooler temps suit fruity whites, while warmer ones enhance red's tannins. Fermentation stops when sugars are depleted or by temperature extremes, and sometimes yeast removal yields sweeter wines. Get a quick breakdown of the process with this easy explainer.

The top wine-producing countries in the world

Three European countries dominate the world in wine production: France, Italy, and Spain. This table lays out how the world's top wine-producing countries compare in terms of annual volume, with Europe and the United States comprising the bulk of production. Visualize the country-by-country difference with this bar graph.

On an island off Cannes, monks make their own wine

Saint-Honorat Island is home to the Lérins Abbey, where an order of monks makes wine, liqueurs, and olive oil—when they’re not praying.

Wine connoisseurs say proper tasting requires looking, smelling, tasting, and thinking

Tasting wine can be intimidating, which is why Wine Folly cofounder Madeline Puckette breaks down the four steps in this helpful video, encouraging viewers to pour a glass and follow along.

Experts say 2023 was a welcome year for Napa's wine

Many vintners say Napa’s 2023 vintage was a landmark year due to plentiful rain and a lack of extreme weather events, particularly extreme heat, which can stunt grapevine photosynthesis. The graph below illustrates the town of Calistoga's relatively cooler temperatures in 2023.

Champagne played a role in resisting the Nazis

When France surrendered to the Nazis in 1940, the invaders occupied the north. This was home to wine regions like Champagne and Bordeaux, which the Nazis were eager to loot. Winemakers took a stand by sheltering dissidents in their cellars, passing intelligence across borders, and even giving their lives to the cause.

The world's most unique cheeses

Some are set apart by their unusual ingredients, like moose milk or live mites. Others are defined by texture, like the Georgian specialty tenili, a very rare hand-pulled cheese that resembles yarn or pasta strands. There’s even a canned cheese that has been using the same strain of bacteria for more than 70 years.

Researchers believe beer was being brewed 13,000 years ago

In 2018, archaeologists discovered traces of a wheat-and-barley-based alcoholic beverage near Haifa, in modern-day Israel, and believe it was produced by the Natufian people.

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.

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.

A World War I discovery about blocking ethylene, a plant hormone, now helps preserve our fruits

Listen to this in-depth podcast episode about discoveries that enabled fruits and vegetables to be preserved and appear fresh for months or longer and other scientific insights, including why iceberg lettuce was the salad staple people ate for most of the 20th century.

Weird ways critical minerals are being mined

Critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, and graphite are economically crucial non-fuel resources subject to supply chain risks. To diversify production, scientists developed odd ways to harvest them. This article breaks down the weirdest approaches, including extracting minerals from seawater using algae, phytomining plants, and asteroids.

Why the ozone hole altered Southern Hemisphere jet streams and rainfall patterns

Ozone depletion over Antarctica shifted jet streams southward, drying Australia while increasing rainfall in Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. Around the turn of the millennium, these trends began to slow as the Montreal Protocol phased out ozone-depleting substances.

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.

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

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

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.

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

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

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.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Poison ivy is in the same family as mangoes, cashews, and pistachios—and they all produce oily urushiol in their raw, unprocessed state—but they are typically prepared in ways to avoid causing human discomfort.

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, 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.

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

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.

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

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

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

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.

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 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

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

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.