Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin was surprised by the emergence of NFTs

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

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.

'Tulip mania,' the 1630s Dutch craze where rare bulbs were briefly traded like luxury assets, may have been the first financial bubble—and it still shapes markets today.

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

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.

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.

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

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital

Watch a visualization of what it would look like to move along Earth's surface as fast as the International Space Station, or about 23 times the speed of sound.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Simulations suggest that a paper airplane launched from the International Space Station would maintain its orientation and gradually descend for 3.5 days before chaotically tumbling down and burning up.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.'

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

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.

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

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.

Listen to audio clips from Hoover, a harbor seal named after its insatiable appetite, who learned to say English phrases such as 'hello there' and 'come over here.'

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

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.

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.

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

The final shots of the Civil War were fired in the Arctic over 2 months after the South's surrender.

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.

Watch President John F. Kennedy's speech on going to the moon

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

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.