Every summer, groups of hunters head to the remote, uninhabited New Siberian islands in search of the elusive “white gold”—a perfectly formed tusk of a woolly mammoth—hidden in the thawing Arctic permafrost. They are not only exploring the furthest reaches of the Arctic Ocean, ...read more
The Earth’s crust is a visual timeline that goes back billions of years. But all over the world, there’s a gap in the timeline—a huge chunk of crust that should be there yet isn’t. Now, scientists say that the crust may have been destroyed during Snowball Earth, a hypothetical ...read more
German physicist Max Planck publishes his groundbreaking study of the effect of radiation on a “blackbody” substance, and the quantum theory of modern physics is born. Through physical experiments, Planck demonstrated that energy, in certain situations, can exhibit ...read more
Many people have a little bit of Neanderthal DNA. In recent years, this discovery has led scientists to conclude that early humans mated with Neanderthals over a single period of time. However, new research suggests that these groups mated with each other over multiple ...read more
Contrary to popular scientific opinion, it turns out life for Neanderthals probably wasn’t any more violent or dangerous than it was for our modern human ancestors. In a new study, researchers from the University of Tübingen in Germany compared the head injuries suffered by ...read more
Ancient people of North America’s Clovis culture migrated to South America roughly 11,000 years ago, then mysteriously vanished, researchers have discovered. In a new study, researchers analyzed DNA from 49 people living over a span of 10,000 years in Belize, Brazil, the Central ...read more
Scientists discovered the ancient human skeleton known as the “Spirit Cave Mummy” back in 1940, hidden in a small rocky cave in the Great Basin Desert in northwest Nevada. But it wouldn’t be until the 1990s that radiocarbon dating techniques revealed the skeleton was some 10,600 ...read more
• Curie was born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland, to schoolteacher parents of modest means who encouraged their children’s educational aspirations. Determined to pursue a scientific career, Marie struck a deal with her sister Bronya, agreeing to fund Bronya’s medical degree in ...read more
History Flashback takes a look at historical “found footage” of all kinds—newsreels, instructional films, even cartoons—to give us a glimpse into how much things have changed, and how much has remained the same. In the scorching summer heat of small-town Dayton, TN, in July of ...read more
For 200,000 years, Neanderthals thrived throughout Eurasia. They seem to have lived full and happy lives. Like us, theyproduced art, mourned their dead, and even used toothpicks to clean between their teeth. But 45,000 years ago, as Homo sapiens made a home in Europe for the ...read more
Chernobyl is a nuclear power plant located in Ukraine that was the site of a disastrous nuclear accident on April 26, 1986. A routine test at the power plant went horribly wrong, and two massive explosions blew the 1,000-ton roof off one of the plant’s reactors, releasing 400 ...read more
Donald had an astonishing memory, but never cried for his mother. Virginia never played with other children and was the daughter of a woman described as “not by any means the mother type” by her husband. Herbert didn’t speak; his mother, a physician, said she couldn’t understand ...read more
The modern birth control pill was conceived in 1950. That year, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, asked a doctor named Gregory Pincus to develop an oral contraceptive for women. Pincus succeeded very quickly: He released a contraceptive pill in 1957 as “Enovid,” ...read more
Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking died on March 14, 2018—also known as Pi Day—at age 76. The scientist stands out for his significant contributions to the field of cosmology, the study of the origin and development of the universe. During his career, Hawking became a cultural ...read more
Paleontologists piece together our planet’s past, but even they admit that they’re assembling a puzzle without knowing where all the pieces are hidden. So any time a major piece is unearthed —like in the recent discovery of a unique new dinosaur in the Egyptian desert—there is ...read more
In 1815, Mount Tambora erupted on Sumbawa, an island of modern-day Indonesia. Historians regard it as the volcano eruption with the deadliest known direct impact: roughly 100,000 people died in the immediate aftermath. But far more died over the next several years, due to ...read more
The Neolithic Revolution, also called the Agricultural Revolution, marked the transition in human history from small nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers to larger, agricultural settlements and early civilization. The Neolithic Revolution started around 10,000 B.C. in the Fertile ...read more
Eugenics is the science of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific desirable hereditary traits. It aims to reduce human suffering by “breeding out” disease, disabilities and so-called undesirable characteristics from the human population. Early ...read more
A team of scientists just announced a blockbuster discovery: a potentially habitable exoplanet about the Earth’s size, orbiting a dim dwarf star just 11 light years away. The newly named exoplanet is named Ross 128 b, after the red dwarf star it orbits, Ross 128. So far, it is ...read more
The Tyrannosaurus rex is revered as one of the most fearsome creatures to inhabit the earth, with an average weight of six tons and the power to tear off 500 pounds using its massive jaw. But one researcher believes the dinosaur’s most ridiculed body part may have been just as ...read more
Climate change is the long-term alteration in Earth’s climate and weather patterns. It took nearly a century of research and data to convince the vast majority of the scientific community that human activity could alter the climate of our entire planet. In the 1800s, experiments ...read more
An elaborate Viking Age grave in Sweden holds the remains of a decorated female warrior from the 10th century, providing the first archaeological evidence that women held high-status positions in Viking culture. The remarkable find was revealed in a study by researchers at ...read more
It boasted a 9-foot-long jaw of razor-sharp teeth and nose-to-tail lengths of up to 60 feet—three times that of an average Great White shark. As the largest shark to have ever lived, the Carcharocles megalodon commanded the ocean for more than 20 million years. Then, suddenly, ...read more
1. Sybil Ludington: The Female Paul Revere On the night of April 26, 1777, 16-year-old Sybil Ludington rode 40 miles to warn approximately 400 militiamen that the British troops were coming. Sound like Paul Revere? It was, except she rode twice as far, was half his age and was ...read more
