Wild
At 50 Below, This Horse Goes Out for Breakfast
Yakutian horses live outdoors all winter in one of the coldest inhabited places on Earth. Their ancestors arrived there not very long ago.
Stories
Places with a plot.
Long reads and clear explainers on how the planet and its people fit together.
Cultures
Seventeen Giant Stone Faces, and No Two Are the Same
The Olmec carved heads from basalt boulders carried across the jungle. Each face looks like a particular person.
Wild
A Forest of 47,000 Trees That Is Really One Tree
Pando in Utah is a single clone, joined at the roots. How old it is nobody agrees.
Wild
A Polar Bear Is Black Underneath, and Its Fur Isn't White Either
The skin is dark. The hairs are see-through. Once, in a zoo, they turned green.
Earth
Who Found Machu Picchu? A Farmer Walked Him There
In 1911 an American professor was led up the mountain by a local man. The families who lived there already knew the place.
Cities
Those Leaning Houses in Amsterdam Are Mostly Leaning on Purpose
A lot of canal houses tip forward a few centimeters. The builders planned it. The sideways lean is a different story.
Earth
People Heard It 4,800 Kilometers Away and Thought It Was Cannons
In 1883 a volcano in Indonesia blew up. The bang crossed the Indian Ocean, and the pressure wave went around the world.
Earth
Clap in Front of This Pyramid and a Bird Answers
A Maya pyramid in Mexico seems to hold a snake made of shadow and a bird made of echoes. Nobody knows whether that was planned.
Earth
A Farmer Heard a Cave Breathing
In 1991 a man in Vietnam found a cave by its sound. It has its own river, its own weather and its own jungle.
Earth
There's a Seal in the Middle of Russia
Lake Baikal is the deepest lake on Earth. It holds about a fifth of the planet's unfrozen fresh water, and a seal lives in it.
Earth
The Hole That Stopped Because It Got Too Hot
A Soviet drill went 12 kilometers into the ground in northern Russia. The rock at the bottom was far warmer than anyone predicted.
Earth
A Record Player in Space, Just in Case
Two spacecraft carry a gold-plated record with Earth's sounds, and Voyager 1 is about to be a full light-day away.
Earth
A Salt Flat So Flat That Satellites Use It as a Ruler
After rain, Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni becomes a mirror. The rest of the time, it helps check how high satellites think they are.
Cultures
The Silk Road Wasn't a Road, and Nobody Called It That
Traders carried goods across Asia in short legs. The name only appeared in 1877.
Cities
The Books Left Timbuktu in Trunks, at Night
In 2012, librarians moved hundreds of thousands of old manuscripts out of a city that was about to be taken.
Earth
The Statues Walked, Say the People Who Know the Island
The old stories of Rapa Nui say the moai walked. An experiment in 2012 suggests they really could.
Earth
It's Not a Worm, and the Light Comes From Its Tail End
The glowworms of Waitomo are baby flies. They fish with sticky threads, and the hungry ones glow brightest.
Earth
An Island Was Born in 1963, and Only Scientists Can Visit
Surtsey rose out of the sea off Iceland. Ever since, researchers have watched how life moves in.
Earth
The First Boat to the Bottom Read the Wrong Number
In 1960 two men spent almost five hours sinking to the deepest place in the ocean. Their depth gauge was off by about 600 meters.
Earth
The Sea That Won't Let You Sink, and Is Slowly Leaving
The Dead Sea is nearly ten times saltier than the ocean, and its shore drops about a meter every year.
Earth
A Star the Size of a City That Spins Faster Than a Blender
In 1967 a student noticed a radio signal that ticked like a clock. It was a neutron star.
Wild
Crows Remember Your Face, and They Tell Their Friends
Researchers in Seattle wore a rubber mask to trap crows. Years later, the crows still scolded it.
Cultures
Forest Bathing Doesn't Involve Water
Shinrin-yoku is a Japanese idea: walk slowly among trees, on purpose, and notice things.
Earth
A Beach in a Meadow, With Waves
Gulpiyuri is in a field in northern Spain, and the sea reaches it underground.
