The nebulous nature of parole

Watch Dr. Laurence Peter explain his 'Peter Principle,' which states that people are promoted to their level of incompetence and explains why bosses aren't always good at their jobs.

Watch a breakdown of the canine family tree that explains how foxes and wolves are related to our beloved household pets, like poodles and dachshunds.

Researchers generally group gut bacteria into six different categories, with varying amounts of these microbes residing in different parts of the digestive tract.

Here are some tips from Pew Research to help you distinguish between a good poll and an unreliable one.

Explore how temperatures compare to historical averages in cities worldwide with this interactive global monitor.

Simulations suggest that a paper airplane launched from the International Space Station would maintain its orientation and gradually descend for 3.5 days before chaotically tumbling down and burning up.

Humans may have as many as 100,000 to 150,000 individual hairs on our scalps, growing at a rate of roughly 1 centimeter per month.

The Aztec Empire ruled over 80,000 square miles of central Mexico for nearly a century—until a small band of Spanish conquistadors brought it down in 1521.

'Bibliotherapy' is of increasing interest as a way to improve mental health and help navigate complex life situations—with people immersing themselves in the experiences of fictional characters or nonfiction and self-help books to find relief and gain personal insights.

'Golden blood' is the rarest blood type in the world—fewer than 50 people are known to have it.

The US jobs projected to shrink the fastest over the next decade include typists and word processors.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital

Miracle berries make things that normally taste acidic or sour, such as lemons, taste sweet, like sugar-coated candy, by binding a special protein called miraculin to taste buds.

Joan Didion interviewed The Grateful Dead in 1967, before they became music icons.

Explore an interactive timeline of Earth's 4.5-billion-year history to visualize shifting landmasses and oceans, view the locations of significant asteroid impacts, and learn about major geological and biological events.

Find out how important you are to AI tools when they generate text responses with this tool, which estimates the weights of people's names.

The average banana produces one positron—the antimatter counterpart to an electron—every 75 minutes as its trace amounts of radioactive potassium decay.

George Lucas used Joseph Campbell's 'hero's journey,' a narrative structure that encompasses the common characteristics of multiple cultures' mythologies, to revise 'Star Wars.'

The world's largest waterfall is in the ocean and is more than three times the height of Angel Falls, the largest waterfall on land.

Watch footage from the moments the Titanic wreck was discovered by a joint US-French research team in 1985.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is "Afghan Girl" by Steve McCurry. Sharbat Gula, the subject of the photo, was not credited until 2002 for her role in the famous National Geographic cover, and continued to live in poverty after the photo was taken.

Although the moon passes between the sun and Earth each month, its orbit is tilted by five degrees, preventing Earth from experiencing a solar eclipse each month.

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

Sea stars are invertebrates—they lack a backbone—and while most exhibit pentametric radial symmetry due to having five arms radiating from a central disk, some can possess more than 40.

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.

Located on Ross Island in Antarctica, Mount Erebus is the southernmost active volcano on Earth and features a lava lake—one of eight known worldwide as of 2026—that erupts regularly.

Between 2002 and 2012, at least 12 people were killed in the Philippines in incidents related to off-key karaoke singing of Frank Sinatra's 'My Way.'

Explore an interactive forecast of the future of the universe, from the return of Halley's Comet to the last light in the cosmos.

This interactive website features nearly 40,000 photos from Wikipedia for you to create visual mosaics with.

Play the role of a student as you try to navigate college and remain debt-free.

Relax to a livestream of brown bears chilling in Katmai National Park in Alaska.

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

Humans tend to imagine aliens as humanlike, but that's probably unlikely. Three different hypothetical planets show how aliens' bodies could take many forms.

Computer scientists first started trying to optimize dating using computers in the 1950s.

Check out some of the best books that can be read in a single day, with titles from Han Kang, Denis Johnson, Muriel Spark, and more.

Experience 14 billion years of important moments in world history with this scrollable interactive timeline.

Streaming service Netflix's sound logo 'Tudum' was designed as a key sonic differentiator.

Author David Foster Wallace's 'This Is Water' speech provides guidance for adulthood.

There are 'YouTube camps' that teach children how to create content for the video platform.

Lake Sørvágsvatn sits about 32 meters (105 feet) above sea level, but the taller surrounding cliffs create an optical illusion that makes it appear to float much higher above the ocean.