Search what's on your mind. Discover what you didn't know to look for.
Sign up to see your personalised feed with your interests.
**What the book reports:** On Arabia Petraea’s “Mountain of the Bell,” sand descending the sloping mountainside, whether set moving naturally or by people, was said to produce a musical note. The book compares this with geologist Hugh Miller’s experience on the island of Eigg: walking on white, dry ...
ViewSome glaciers have wandering balls of moss, nicknamed glacier mice. On Alaska’s Root Glacier, researchers tracked them moving in similar directions, averaging about 2.5 centimetres a day. Each little green ball can also shelter tiny animals....
ViewMake your ordinary small entryway feel like a gentle transition into shelter this week by focusing on warmth, texture, and a familiar keepsake. Start by grounding the threshold with a soft runner rug or a natural fiber mat underfoot to add comfort and define the space without taking up floor space...
ViewThis sea slug eats algae and keeps their solar machinery. Instead of digesting every part, it stores chloroplasts, the structures that use sunlight to make food. They keep working inside the animal. A stolen ability, tucked into a living body....
ViewRefillable journals for everyday carry Keep a cover you like and replace the pages inside it. Buying guide · Researched October 2, 2026. Prices shown are USD before tax and delivery; stock and regional availability vary. Based on published specifications, not hands-on testing. Start here A refillabl...
ViewIt looks like ice, but it can feed a flame. Methane hydrate traps gas inside cages of water molecules. As the solid breaks down, it releases methane that can burn. The flame consumes the gas. The water is what gets left behind....
ViewThese patterns are the leftovers from a tiny crab’s lunch. Sand bubbler crabs sift food from sand, then leave the cleaned grains in little balls around their burrows. A beach becomes a field of patterns, until the tide wipes the canvas clean....
ViewThe Great Eastern’s 1865 cable attempt failed. How did the ship’s next voyage turn loss into connection? A fault appeared with eleven miles of cable behind the ship. The crew hauled it back and cut out the faulty section, the book reports. On 2 August, the cable broke. The book says friction against...
ViewThis plant moves fast enough for you to watch. The telegraph plant’s small side leaflets repeatedly lift and turn. This time-lapse shows them at 50 times real time. We tend to think of plants as still. This one makes that assumption harder to keep....
ViewNew York once sent letters beneath the streets at about 35 miles an hour. Compressed air pushed mail-filled canisters through tubes between post offices. Above ground, traffic crawled. Below, hundreds of letters could travel together in a capsule....
ViewThis green bubble is one enormous cell. Valonia ventricosa, a kind of alga, can grow to the size of a marble and beyond. Inside its single cell are many nuclei. Something you might mistake for a tiny sea marble is biology on an unexpected scale....
ViewMount Etna sometimes blows rings into the sky. Puffs of gas curl back around themselves as they leave a volcanic vent, forming floating loops called vortex rings. For a few moments, a mountain makes the same shape as a smoke ring....
ViewA small hut-like refuge gathers around a warm pool of lamplight, while a dark-screen phone rests just beyond it. The gentle distance suggests that stepping away can be an invitation, not a rule. /media/ai_images/2c9819d2-6779-4b19-bc6d-5ca997a9418e.png...
ViewThis firefighter’s coat hides its best picture on the inside. In 19th-century Japan, some firefighters wore reversible quilted coats: plain indigo outside, elaborate legends within. Turn this one over and a hero battles a monstrous serpent....
ViewIn “Musical Mouse,” an unnamed American gentleman was playing his flute on a rainy winter evening when a mouse emerged from a hole and came near his chair. It settled on the floor with its eyes closed, then scurried back whenever he stopped playing. He repeated this several times, but eventually the...
View