MSG was first isolated from seaweed in Japan in 1908

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.

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.

Lesser-known phobias include turophobia, or the fear of cheese, and nomophobia, the fear of being without your cell phone.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.'

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.'

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital

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.

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

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.'

If the moon were less than one-twelfth its current distance from Earth, the planet's tidal forces would overcome the moon's internal gravity, tearing it apart and forming a ring of debris.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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