We all know Mother Nature likes to put us in our place. Earthquakes, tornadoes, and other assorted calamities all serve to keep us in check and knock our human ego down a notch. Sometimes, however, we don’t need the help. Some of the worst disasters in our history can be chalked up to human error.

The United Kingdom has such an array of wonderful country parks, forests, and estates that it would be impossible to visit them all in one lifetime. As with all countries, the tales told about some of our dear forests are quite simply . . . petrifying. One would do well to avoid some of the

By modern standards, life in ancient Rome was awful. Slavery was rampant, health care was very basic, and if you were poor, the only route to a comfortable retirement was 20 years of military service. However, it was still one of the most progressive societies on Earth at the time. When the Populares faction were

There are two ways of creating a product. The first is finding a problem and creating a product as a solution. The other is by converting nonproblems into problems and providing the answer. Businesses seem to enjoy the latter business strategy because it allows them to create profitable niche markets. There are lots of goods

Almost halfway through the year, headlines have once again been swarming with an array of fascinating new studies. Scientists from across the planet have been working away to learn more about the bizarre, fascinating world in which we live. This month, a mind-controlled hearing aid has been invented that decides how to act by monitoring

Mass hysteria is a psychological phenomenon which has been documented since the Middle Ages. Political turmoil, environmental stress, fear of the unknown, and the need for social acceptance from our peers can often cause us to behave in an irrational manner, and throughout history, close-knit groups, such as schools and small communities, have experienced inexplicable

A job is something all of us have to do to get by. Those at the top tell other people what to do. Everyone else has to obey in order to take care of pesky things like rent and food. Not everyone is cut out for all the positions out there, though most of us

Despite a wealth of sophisticated experiments and contributions from some of the greatest intellects of our time, the search for dark matter continues. It might account for a quarter of the energy density in the universe, but to date, all attempts at direct detection have proved fruitless. The enigmatic matter does not absorb or emit

Trees are everywhere. Though we all know they are alive, we don’t generally think of trees that way; they’re more or less just part of the scenery. Nevertheless, many of us have been scared by a tree at some point or another—one with a sinister shape at night or a face-like feature we didn’t expect

Some biologists adore spiders. It’s why they visit the same arachnid for 40 years and why the world recently saw the first trained spider. This spider love has yielded quite a bit of knowledge, but there’s still so much more to learn. These creatures have more mysteries than they have legs. Inexplicable fossilization, producing milk

Everyone’s heard of the usual kinds of theft. There are lucrative robberies, like vehicle and identity theft, and the more commonplace pilfering, like shoplifting. According to The National Association for Shoplifting Prevention, more than $13 billion of goods are robbed from various retailers across the United States every year. That’s more than $35 million of

As most of us will have discovered by now, the human body is a marvel. Many of the things it can do seem like magic compared to other life-forms on Earth, and even if extraordinary abilities do exist in nature, they’re often developed as specialized responses to their immediate environments and not as a part