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

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 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.'

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.'

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

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.

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

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.

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.'

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

Located on Ross Island in Antarctica, Mount Erebus is the southernmost active volcano on Earth and features a lava lake—one of eight known worldwide as of 2026—that erupts regularly.

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

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

Plato's famous allegory of the cave is a metaphor exploring the value of truth over ignorance.

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