The most unique-smelling places on Earth

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Rapid intensification is the increase in a hurricane's sustained wind speed by at least 35 miles per hour within 24 hours, which can strengthen it by up to two categories.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital

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

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

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

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.

Apeirophobia is the fear of everlasting life and may stem from the human brain's inability to conceptualize the concept of anything happening beyond what it can project out, such as the concept of an infinite life.

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.