science

History

Roy Chapman Andrews: A Real Life Indiana Jones

Since the '80s, one name has been synonymous with adventure: Indiana Jones. With his hat and his whip, his brain and his brawn, and that amazing theme music, who hasn’t dreamed of being like Indy, roaming the world and hunting down treasure? One man, Roy Chapman Andrews, was very nearly the real thing. Though his adventures didn’t involve faces melting or hearts being torn out, they were still perilous and often produced artifacts of great significance.... READ ON

Big Question

Why Do Cicadas Spend So Much Time Underground?

In 1996, the cicadas of Brood II (the “East Coast Brood”) swarmed the northeastern United States and then disappeared almost as quickly as they came, leaving only their eggs and molted exoskeletons behind. Once the eggs hatched, the new generation of cicada nymphs crawled underground, where they’ve spent the last 17 years biding their time and living off of tree roots. ... READ ON

Big Question

Is There Such a Thing as Photographic Memory?

The best early ‘90s children’s bookshelves were full of books about child detectives, including Cam Jansen, the fifth grade super-sleuth with a photographic memory. She was called “Cam,” short for “camera,” because she would close her eyes and say, “click!” to instantly memorize every detail of a scene. It’s the kind of thing that seems too good to be true, but does anyone really have a memory as accurate as a camera?... READ ON

Pretty Pictures

14 Photos of Whale Bones (and more!) from the AMNH's Mammalogy Department

We went behind the scenes to check out the institution's whale collections in its Mammalogy Department—and took photos so you can feel like you were there, too.... READ ON

Science

Vladimir Nabokov Talks Synesthesia

You’ve probably heard of synesthesia, the condition that makes people involuntarily associate something with a sense that wouldn’t normally be associated otherwise. ... READ ON

Big Question

Why Don’t Big Dogs Live as Long as Small Dogs?

Large animals tend to live longer than smaller ones. But this isn't the case for most breeds of dog. What gives?... READ ON

Science

Proof: Babies Can Be Jerks

Those mean girls might have been mean infants too, new research says.... READ ON

Animals

Meet the Tadpole with Teeth

In 2008, an international team of scientists was trudging through the forests of Vietnam’s Bidoup-Nui Ba National Park when they found a frog they didn’t recognize. Actually, no one recognized it, at least not formally. It was new to science and the species had never been described or named. ... READ ON

Weird Science

Einstein's Design for a Fridge to Last 100 Years

After establishing the theory of relativity as a founding principle of modern physics, Albert Einstein turned his thoughts to higher matters: home appliances.... READ ON

Big Question

How Do They Make the "Pope Smoke"?

When the Catholic cardinals meet to pick a new pope in the “papal conclave,” they’re sequestered in the Sistine Chapel so that their deliberations aren’t influenced by the outside world and that their ballots, burned after each round of voting, remain secret. Updates from within the conclave, then, come not from press conferences or the pontifical Twitter account, but the chapel’s chimney.... READ ON