The number of continents is one of the first facts most people are taught about the world, and one of the least questioned. Seven: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North…
In the Southern Hemisphere summer of 1997, a team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was doing routine work: monitoring an array of underwater microphones, or hydrophones, positioned to…
Nobody plans to waste money on a trip, but the way currency and fees work abroad makes it remarkably easy to lose a meaningful amount without noticing. Almost all of…
There is nothing quite like looking into a crater and understanding, in a physical way, that the ground you live on is a thin crust over something enormous. These fourteen…
We tend to assume that simple things are old things. If an object is uncomplicated and useful, surely someone thought of it long ago. In fact, the gap between when…
Soup is the most universal thing people cook. It stretches scarce ingredients, it uses the parts of an animal nobody else wants, and it turns up in some form in…
