Understanding why the US can't use its own crude oil and depends on global markets

'Tulip mania,' the 1630s Dutch craze where rare bulbs were briefly traded like luxury assets, may have been the first financial bubble—and it still shapes markets today.

On planets in systems with two stars, such as the fictional Tatooine from 'Star Wars,' observers would see overlapping rainbows and double rainbows.

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

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

Fecal transplants can help treat infections by transplanting healthy gut bacteria from a donor into a patient's gastrointestinal tract using samples of human waste, which are turned into a liquid mixture and often delivered via a colonoscopy procedure.

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.

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.

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 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.

Experience a century of America's healthcare advances with this medical visualization, tracing a sampling of healthcare innovations from head to toe.

The US has discontinued a variety of different currency denominations over the years—including a $100K bill.

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

Explore a collection of famous literary maps, including original images from 'Treasure Island,' 'The Swiss Family Robinson, ' and 'Walden.'

The collapse of gas bubbles in the joint synovial fluid causes 'cracking' knuckles.

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

On a cruise ship, the average person uses about 50 gallons of water a day, which is treated by bacteria and onboard filtration systems, then stored until the ship can legally discharge the wastewater.

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.

As part of the up to 15 pounds of seafood they consume daily, sea otters eat urchins that feed on kelp forests—sources of shelter and food to over 800 species—thereby making the marine mammal a keystone species.

The animatronic shark from 'Jaws' was a complex machine called 'Bruce.'

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.'

Stonehenge was built using giant wooden rollers and precisely carved tongue-and-groove joints to lock the stones in place.

This short animation shows how human beings managed to lug 30-ton stones over miles of prehistoric English countryside and stand them up The Stone Age engineering involved using giant wooden rollers and carving precisely interlocking tongue-and-groove joints to hold the heavy stones in place.

Listen to audio clips from Hoover, a harbor seal named after its insatiable appetite, who learned to say English phrases such as 'hello there' and 'come over here.'

Light takes approximately eight minutes to travel from the sun's surface to Earth, but it takes thousands of years to reach the star's surface from its core—a distance more than 200 times shorter.

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

Male pattern baldness accounts for more than 95% of hair loss in men and is characterized by thinning hair, hair loss, and a receding hairline.

Washing dishware before putting it in a dishwasher may reduce the appliance's effectiveness because it dynamically adjusts wash time and temperature based on a sensor that detects dirtiness.

Explore the wineries of Napa Valley with an interactive map of its hundreds of wineries, vineyards, and tasting rooms.

Watch a visualization of what it would look like to move along Earth's surface as fast as the International Space Station, or about 23 times the speed of sound.

Watch a two-year time-lapse of a pinecone seed transforming into a pine tree.

Pregnancy makes someone more attractive to the mosquito species that transmits malaria.

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

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

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

Watch Bruce Springsteen's 1985 performance of Woody Guthrie's 'This Land Is Your Land,' which he calls 'the greatest song ever written about America.'

Robert Smalls escaped slavery by piloting a stolen Confederate ship to freedom, then became an influential Black political leader during Reconstruction.

'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.

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

The Berlin Wall physically separated East and West Berlin for nearly three decades, preventing East Germans from fleeing to the West and earning the nickname 'the Iron Curtain.'

Watch 4-plus decades of Pixar's opening logos.

Watch what would happen if you literally had all the money in the world.