The world is more interesting than you think.
Unexpected facts, big ideas, and little discoveries. Find something that sparks your curiosity today.
A little more wonder
BBC television returned with the same Mickey Mouse cartoon
BBC television closed at the outbreak of war in September 1939 after showing Mickey’s Gala Premiere. When broadcasts resumed in June 1946, the same cartoon…
Discover more
The hit song recorded in a haunted bathroom
British producer Joe Meek recorded vocals in his London flat’s bathroom for its reverb and stomped on the stairs for percussion. He used the flat as a studio…
Discover more
A hotel check-in could leave a trail for the police
Nineteenth-century Lausanne hotel registers recorded details such as occupation, origin, and where guests were traveling from and to. Historians have studied…
Discover more
One economist argued that taking longer to build things creates capital
Böhm-Bawerk’s example starts with a fishing net: build the tool first, catch fish later. He argued that this longer route creates capital and helps explain…
Discover more
Early American finance traded promises written on paper
After the Revolutionary War, certificates representing government debts circulated among buyers and sellers, often below their face value. Someone needing…
Discover more
An abandoned hotel above a waterfall became a biodiversity museum
Colombia's Casa Museo Salto del Tequendama occupies a former hotel beside the dramatic falls southwest of Bogotá. Restoring the building gave it a new…
Discover more
STACKY FOR IPHONEA bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.
Keep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.
Why Brownian motion can’t power a perpetual-motion machine
A ratchet seems like it should turn random jostling into one-way motion, but the pawl—the catch that blocks backward movement—gets jostled too. The same heat…
Discover more
The ghostly glow that clings to ship masts
St. Elmo’s fire is air glowing around a pointed object, not a flame eating its way up a mast. A strong electric field energizes nearby air until it gives off…
Discover more
A silent-film star earned an Oscar nomination when movies learned to talk
Bessie Love moved into sound with The Broadway Melody in 1929 and received a Best Actress nomination. The musical demanded a new kind of screen performance:…
Discover more
The ski resort that lost its glacier
By 2009, the 18,000-year-old glacier had melted completely; the road reopened anyway, drawing climate-grief tourists to the lodge at 17,000 feet.
Discover more
Two small planes rescued survivors from an Alpine glacier
After an American transport aircraft became stranded on Switzerland's Gauli Glacier in 1946, Swiss pilots landed two Fieseler Storch planes on the snow.…
Discover more
Ashgabat's airport terminal takes the shape of a falcon
The main passenger terminal in Turkmenistan's capital uses sweeping forms to evoke an enormous bird. Its silhouette turns a transport building into a national…
Discover more
A US study withheld syphilis treatment for decades
From 1932 to 1972, the Tuskegee study followed Black men with syphilis without properly informing them of the study's purpose. Effective penicillin treatment…
Discover more
The Wilhelm Gustloff wreck is a grave, not a dive attraction
The ship sank in the Baltic in January 1945 while carrying civilians and military personnel. Poland protects the wreck as a war grave, with diving prohibited…
Discover more
Yellow Submarine was restored one frame at a time
The 2012 restoration cleaned the animation by hand rather than letting automated software decide what belonged in each image. That mattered for a film packed…
Discover more
A mysterious epidemic disrupted both sleep and movement
Constantin von Economo described encephalitis lethargica in 1917. Patients could develop profound sleep disturbances and movement problems; some later…
Discover more
A solar storm once made telegraph wires spark
During the 1859 Carrington Event, a severe geomagnetic disturbance induced currents in long telegraph lines. Operators reported sparks and equipment behaving…
Discover more
The brain signal before a movement does not settle the free-will debate
A readiness potential can appear before people report deciding to move. One influential model explains the averaged signal partly through fluctuating neural…
Discover more
Somaliland built state institutions before winning recognition
After declaring independence in 1991, Somaliland developed its own currency, elections, and security forces while remaining largely unrecognized…
Discover more
Tallinn's Linnahall puts a public landscape on a building's roof
Opened in 1980, the broad, low complex was designed with terraces and monumental stairs instead of a conventional tower. Its roof can read like an extension…
Discover more
Newspapers exaggerated the War of the Worlds panic
Newspapers worried radio was taking their ad revenue, and some exaggerated the broadcast's effects, portraying a few confused callers as nationwide hysteria,…
Discover more
The squid nerves behind a famous circuit
A Schmitt trigger gives a wavering signal two thresholds: one to switch on and a different one to switch off. That gap stops tiny electrical jitters from…
Discover more
Entire independent film scenes ran out of a hotel room
After the mainstream film industry shut her out, Shirley Clarke turned a penthouse at New York’s Hotel Chelsea into a production hub for the underground…
Discover more
A group can agree how far a stationary light moved
In Muzafer Sherif's experiments, a fixed light in a dark room appeared to drift because viewers lacked visual reference points. Participants' estimates moved…
Discover more