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
A stained-glass knight helped bring digital characters into live-action film
For 1985's Young Sherlock Holmes, a figure steps out of a church window and attacks. Lucasfilm created the knight digitally and placed it into filmed…
Discover more
Pluto's heart has a moving glacier on one side
Sputnik Planitia, the pale western lobe of the heart-shaped region, is covered in nitrogen ice. At Pluto's temperatures, nitrogen is solid but can still flow…
Discover more
Newborns have a surprisingly powerful grip
A newborn’s grip can feel startlingly firm because it is driven by a reflex, not a plan. Pressure on the palm prompts the fingers to curl around whatever is…
Discover more
How a train station heats a building with body heat
At Stockholm Central Station, ventilation collects warmth from the crowds and heat exchangers transfer it to water used by the nearby Kungsbrohuset building.…
Discover moreLosing Oswald pushed Disney toward a mouse he could control
Walt Disney lost control of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit after a contract dispute. Mickey Mouse emerged from the new work that followed, with Ub Iwerks central to…
Discover more
A teacher celebrated turning 63 by going over Niagara Falls
On October 24, 1901, Annie Edson Taylor rode over Horseshoe Falls in a padded barrel and survived. She hoped the feat would bring an income, but survival did…
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.
Wikipedia's open door does not mean everyone contributes equally
Research tracking which added words readers actually encountered found that frequent editors dominated much of the visible contribution. Counting accounts…
Discover more
National Lampoon printed a spoiler warning in 1971
A 1971 article titled “Spoilers” deliberately revealed famous plot twists and endings. The joke depended on doing exactly what readers now try to avoid…
Discover more
First reality shows were heavily manipulated
Producers shaped the story of An American Family with leading questions and deceptive editing, setting an early template for unscripted TV drama.
Discover more
A space-camera project helped put cameras in everyone's pocket
JPL developed a CMOS active-pixel sensor approach that combined image sensing with electronics on a chip while using little power. Those qualities were useful…
Discover more
The cloud began as a shape on network diagrams
Telecom engineers drew a cloud on network diagrams to represent external networks whose inner workings weren't shown—the data simply went somewhere beyond the…
Discover more
Why looking at texture can feel like touching it
Look at ridges, fuzz, or a rough surface and your mind can begin simulating what your fingertips would feel. Vision and touch work together to build a sense…
Discover more
Highest bowling score requires mathematical precision
A perfect game takes 12 strikes: one in each of the first nine frames and three in the 10th.
Discover more
The original Dow average followed a railroad-heavy economy
Charles Dow's 1884 average contained eleven stocks, mostly railroad companies. The Industrial Average followed in 1896 with a different lineup. An index is a…
Discover more
China's 1931 floods killed long after the water rose
The Yangtze-Huai disaster inundated vast areas and displaced millions. Drowning was only part of the toll: hunger and disease followed the destruction of…
Discover more
Chess clocks made thinking time a resource
A linked pair of clocks lets one player's time run while the other player's is stopped. Each move passes the running clock to the opponent along with the…
Discover more
An infamous occultist invented his own religion
Crowley founded Thelema, a spiritual philosophy whose best-known rule is “Do what thou wilt.”
Discover more
The equation that changed how Wall Street prices risk
An option gives its holder the right to buy or sell an asset at an agreed price. The 1973 Black–Scholes model connected its theoretical value to quantities…
Discover more
Stare at stripes now, see phantom colors later
Stare at a stripe pattern long enough and the visual system adapts to the repeated contrast. When you look away, the balance between the systems responding to…
Discover more
Slanted home windows were built to keep flying witches out
Some rural American builders tilted high attic windows because they believed flying witches couldn’t navigate the crooked angles.
Discover more
One route to the mouse wheel began with a spreadsheet zoom lever
Microsoft's Eric Michelman recalled experimenting with a joystick to help Excel users move through large sheets. Zooming out made a distant section easier to…
Discover more
Apollo mirrors still bounce lasers back to Earth
The Apollo astronauts left retroreflector panels on the Moon that bounce laser light back toward its source. Scientists still fire lasers at them from Earth…
Discover more
Two sugars with equal calories can send different signals to the brain
In mouse research reported by NIH, glucose and fructose affected hunger-related neurons and food preferences differently. Equal energy content did not mean…
Discover more
Color film was capturing moving images in 1901
Test footage from 1901, discovered in a museum vault, shows a pet bird shifting its colored feathers.
Discover more