Haley Sweetland Edwards

From the plastic bird's birth to its modern perch atop the pyramid of campy Americana, here’s the quick-and-dirty on the hot pink queen of kitsch.

The oldest known trees are thousands of years old. The ancient plants have witnessed the rise and fall of multiple civilizations.

Most of us think of international borders as invisible, but clear-cut, lines: stand on one side, and you’re in one country; stand on the other, you’re in another country. But here’s a list of five international borders that, for one reason or another, are

Christopher Columbus did a lot of naming in his day. As it turns out, he had a hand in naming four of the five island-nations with two names. Is that an obscure enough fact for you? Still, this is definitely the kind of fact that shows up on pub trivia ni

Anyone with even a fleeting relationship to political news these days has probably noticed that partisan bickering in the U.S. Congress has reached a bit of a crescendo of late. So we got to thinking: When do politicians just give up on the vitriolic rhet

Pretty much ever since humans discovered flight, we’ve been strapping animals into our new devices just to see what would happen. Over the last 330 years or so, we’ve launched dogs, cats, chimps, monkeys, roosters, ducks, spiders, fruit flies, silk worms

© Najlah Feanny/CORBIS SABA It's been almost 16 years since Dolly the cloned sheep was born. As she fades from our cultural memory, here’s a look at 11 up-and-coming (and often controversial) genetically engineered animals that might start appearing in b

Work these into conversation.