Looking at old photographs, it is easy to imagine that the past was a drab place. Even old paintings can make us think that no one in history enjoyed colorful things. But photos and brown-varnished paintings do not tell the whole story. To make those paintings in the first place, people had to search out

Sweat cools down the body. It may even betray a nervous mind. But for scientists, it is so much more. Its chemicals improve athletic performance and reveal the strange influence of male sweat on both genders. Inventions in this field are peculiar—from perspiring robots to sweat-sensing clothing that offers coolness. As improbable as it sounds,

The dangers of space travel are well understood. Lists of its casualties include the entire Apollo 1 crew (Gus Grissom, Edward White II, Roger Chaffee) and the entire team of cosmonauts on the Soyuz 11 (Georgi Dobrovolski, Viktor Patsayev, Vladislav Volkov). The business of space travel is a risky one. Since the 1960s, more than

Losing a child is every parent’s worst nightmare, a permanently life-altering event that turns their world upside down. Such tragedies are arguably at their worst when foul play is involved or when a child simply vanishes, leaving the parents deprived of closure. Some parents who have lost a child in extreme circumstances will take their

Dedicated to probing the unknown, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has designed its fair share of unusual studies. Tasked with keeping astronauts safe, they threw lunar dust at oysters and had a man sniff at 800 space-bound items. Curiosity also saw their scientists turn photographs into music and create oceans in cups. NASA’s

A lot of people enjoy a nice, scenic hike in the woods. Getting out into nature is relaxing and good for the soul. It’s fun to do it at least once in summer or autumn. Unfortunately, this list will not make you want to go hiking. That is because David Carpenter (aka “the Trailside Killer”)

Fresh facts can nudge historians deeper into the lives of renowned figures and places. Recent nuggets found Leonardo da Vinci’s missing mother, Rembrandt’s peculiar paint, and how pig fat built Stonehenge. But that’s not all. New discoveries also updated a mysterious civilization, gave an odd clue to the purpose of the Nazca Lines, and revealed

According to UNESCO, there are approximately three million shipwrecks scattered across the Earth’s surface.[1] The ocean is a vast place, and sea travel can be a hugely isolated and dangerous endeavor. Some ships are destroyed by storms, others run out of supplies or hit land, and some just outright vanish, never to be seen again.

With the weekend comes a look at some of the happiest, most inspiring tales that took place over the past week. In addition, you can get your dose of weird by checking out the offbeat list. We have a few stirring rescues this week. A teenager tackles a violent pit bull to save a young

We’ve idolized our stars of stage and screen since man first entertained his fellow villagers. Newspapers, magazines, and the Internet give us so much gossip and information on our celebrities that we’re pretty sure we know everything there is to know about them. But sometimes, there is so much more behind a pretty face or

While we don’t often like to speak of it, death inevitably comes to us all. Most of us hope for a peaceful drift into eternal sleep in old age. For some of us, accident or misadventure sees us meeting an untimely end. Death is always tragic, but throughout history, there have been some truly bizarre

Food today is incredibly convenient. Thanks to manufacturing, people in wealthy countries have better access to food than any other generation in history. In the past, people had no choice but to prepare all their own meals from scratch. This required time, skill, and effort. If no one in the family could cook, the family