Educational Science

A 30-Million-Page Archive of Human History Was Just Launched into Space

Last week, a 30-million-page archive of human history and civilization launched aboard a spacecraft headed for the moon. The so-called Lunar Library is a small nanotech device that resembles a DVD, and it's intended as a backup plan so that everything we've ever learned as humans doesn't get lost in...

If the Animals from 'Game of Thrones' Houses Battled, Which One Would Win?

For nearly a decade, would-be kings and queens in HBO's Game of Thrones have stabbed, slashed and poisoned their way toward a seat on the Iron Throne. And the fierceness of the human combatants mirrors the ferocity of the animals displayed on these leaders' banners. Each of the show's dominant...

But nature didn't just hand these instant-killing weapons to these prehistoric sharks, called megalodons. Rather, it took millions of years for the teeth to evolve into their final, lethal form, according to a new study published on March 1 in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. To understand the evolution of...

In Notre Dame Fire, Echoes of the 1837 Blaze That Destroyed Russia's Winter Palace

In a city graced with remarkable architecture, the cathedral of Notre Dame may be Paris' most striking edifice. So when it was engulfed by a fire that toppled its spire, it seemed as if more than a building had been scorched; the nation had lost a piece of its soul....

Why Do Our Fingernails Keep Growing Until the Day We Die?

At 20 weeks in the womb, humans suddenly sprout tough little casings from the tips of our tiny digits. By the time we're born, our fingers and toes are crowned by fully-formed nails that will be with us for the rest of our lives. Over the ensuing decades, the average...

Why Are There So Many Marsupials in Australia?

Australia is the kingdom of marsupials, home to furry kangaroos, koalas and wombats. The continent has so many marsupials, it raises the question: Did these pouch-bearing mammals arise Down Under? The answer is an unqualified (or un-koalafied) no. Marsupials were around for at least 70 million years before they made...

Jesus wasn't the only man to be crucified. Here's the history behind this brutal practice.

The most famous crucifixion in the world took place when, according to the New Testament, Jesus was put to death by the Romans. But he was far from the only person who perished on the cross. In antiquity, thousands upon thousands of people were crucified, which at the time was...

The Most Distant Object Ever Explored Is Lumpy. And Astronomers Don't Know Why.

Ultima Thule is lumpy, and scientists aren't sure why. Just after midnight on Jan. 1, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft zoomed past Ultima Thule, a small, frigid object that lies about 1 billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond the orbit of Pluto. The photos New Horizons captured during that epic encounter...

Why Does Time Fly When You're Having Fun?

The world's most precise clocks run at a steady pace, messing up by only about 1 second every 300 million years. But the brain takes those rhythmic seconds and makes its own sense of time — stretching the ticks and scrunching the tocks. But why can't the brain keep time...

Turbulent Blobs in Earth's Core May Explain Sudden Jerks in the Magnetic Field

Earth's magnetic shield defends our planet from the scourges of solar wind and cosmic radiation, making life on our planet possible. But every 10 years or so, it can be a real jerk. Geomagnetic jerks are abrupt changes in the strength of Earth's magnetic field. While some variations in this...