Why processed foods can be so addictive

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

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

Explore Lewis and Clark's 8,000-mile journey in Google Earth.

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

Explore a detailed map of Odysseus' fictional journey from 'The Odyssey.'

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

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

See a breakdown of how some of the most common food items are traded across the globe, including the key trade relationships for each item.

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

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.

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

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.

Abraham Lincoln had to sneak into Washington, DC, in disguise for his 1861 inauguration after a detective uncovered a plot to assassinate him in Baltimore.

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

Watch an animated visualization of how the Large Hadron Collider works, including how particles are accelerated through a series of machines and how collision data is collected and distributed worldwide.

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

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

Metamorphosis evolved over millions of years as species that hatched as smaller versions of adults started exhibiting genetic mutations that differentiated juvenile and adult bodies.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Peek into the love lives of thousands of strangers whom Stanford University researchers have been tracking since 2017 on this interactive page.

You may be better at spotting a lie when listening to a speaker's voice inflections rather than watching for facial and body cues.

Semaglutides, which belong to a class of drugs called GLP-1s, are prescribed for weight loss in combination with diet and exercise because they trigger the release of the appetite-suppressing hormone incretin.

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.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital

Explore how the most commonly used words in the English language have changed from the 1950s to 2023.

If a source of music traveled past someone at twice the speed of sound, assuming sufficiently sensitive hearing and powerful equipment, they would hear the music backward.

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

Explore (and debunk) the world's most contagious misconceptions—from the 5-second rule to sugar rushes—on this interactive site. Click on each misconception for further evidence.

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.'

Examine this captivating animation 'building' a human—illustrating the roughly 40 weeks of fetal development.

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.

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

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

A dog's nose can be up to 100,000 times more sensitive than a human's, and each possesses a secondary organ for smelling, which helps learn about other dogs when they sniff each other's butts.