The tallest tsunami in recorded history was 524 meters (1,720 feet) high—taller than the Empire State Building—and occurred in Lituya Bay, Alaska, in 1958 after an earthquake dislodged a rockface into the water.

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.

Explore the history of American restaurants through an archive of menus dating back to the early 1800s.

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

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

In 1962, the US detonated a nuclear weapon in space, which produced an electromagnetic pulse that disabled three low Earth orbit satellites and damaged electrical equipment in Hawaii.

See where your state ranked in an analysis of the best public school systems in the US.

Explore 3D models of some of the most dangerous viruses, allowing us to understand these and other pathogens in new ways.

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.

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.

Emanuel Leutze's painting 'Washington Crossing the Delaware' is one of the defining images of the Revolutionary War.

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.

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.

There are up to 100 trillion microbes in the gut, and maintaining the relative balance in this ecosystem is important for our health.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Give your memories a place to live and explore the personal stories left by strangers, tied to specific locations, in this interactive map of the world.

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

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.

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.

Watch the many different civilizations around the Mediterranean shift power from the year 2500 BCE to 0 BCE in this animated map.

Explore the 2025 Uber Lost & Found Index to find out the weirdest items that passengers left behind in Ubers last year, from ten live lobsters to a mannequin head with human hair.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Cats have a mutation that prevents them from tasting sweetness, and goldfish rank among the world's supertasters.

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