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
The Super Bowl creates a chicken-wing logistics event.
The Super Bowl creates a chicken-wing logistics event. The game lasts one evening, but serving more than a billion wings around it requires planning across…
Discover more
Strangers form instant carpools to get across the Bay Bridge.
Strangers form instant carpools to get across the Bay Bridge. In the San Francisco Bay Area's casual-carpool system, drivers and passengers meet at designated…
Discover more
Sonic and his nemesis both made it into biology.
Sonic and his nemesis both made it into biology. Sonic hedgehog is the name of a real developmental gene and its signaling protein, involved in shaping the…
Discover more
A roof tile brought down the king behind 'Pyrrhic victory'.
A roof tile brought down the king behind 'Pyrrhic victory'. Plutarch tells how an elderly woman in Argos threw a tile at Pyrrhus while he fought her son. The…
Discover more
A painted line became one of road design’s simplest safety tools.
A painted line became one of road design’s simplest safety tools. Michigan road commissioner Edward Hines promoted the highway centerline in 1911, giving…
Discover more
Magic: The Gathering literally requires a team of dedicated economists to constantly monitor its complex secondary market because a single rare piece of printed cardboard can…
Magic: The Gathering literally requires a team of dedicated economists to constantly monitor its complex secondary market because a single rare piece of…
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.
A cancer-hazard category measures evidence, not equal danger.
A cancer-hazard category measures evidence, not equal danger. Processed meat is in IARC's Group 1 because evidence establishes that it causes cancer in…
Discover more
Thomas Aquinas attempted to reconcile astrology with Christianity by claiming the stars could influence the body but not the soul, effectively creating a theological loophole for medieval horoscopes.
Thomas Aquinas attempted to reconcile astrology with Christianity by claiming the stars could influence the body but not the soul, effectively creating a…
Discover more
Boston Corbett was the deeply eccentric Union soldier who famously shot and killed John Wilkes Booth, but he is equally notable for having casually castrated himself with a pair of scissors.
Boston Corbett was the deeply eccentric Union soldier who famously shot and killed John Wilkes Booth, but he is equally notable for having casually castrated…
Discover more
High heels change the forces reaching your knees.
High heels change the forces reaching your knees. In a 1998 study, 20 women walked barefoot and in their own high heels. Researchers found greater forces…
Discover more
Screen apnea is a widely documented phenomenon where you unknowingly hold your breath or take incredibly shallow breaths while reading emails, significantly spiking your body's…
Screen apnea is a widely documented phenomenon where you unknowingly hold your breath or take incredibly shallow breaths while reading emails, significantly…
Discover more
An astronaut wears the life-support system outside the spacecraft.
An astronaut wears the life-support system outside the spacecraft. A spacewalking suit supplies pressure and oxygen, removes carbon dioxide, and helps manage…
Discover more
Oxygen was once a radical change to Earth's atmosphere.
Oxygen was once a radical change to Earth's atmosphere. Microbes released oxygen long before it accumulated substantially in the air, around 2.4 billion years…
Discover more
A groove in a nail can record an interruption in growth.
A groove in a nail can record an interruption in growth. Horizontal grooves called Beau lines can appear after nail growth slows or pauses because of illness,…
Discover more
Depression-era farm aid paid to reduce food production.
Depression-era farm aid paid to reduce food production. With farm prices collapsing in 1933, the U.S. government tried to raise them by cutting supply,…
Discover more
A child's doodle can turn a passport into a travel problem.
A child's doodle can turn a passport into a travel problem. Passport markings and alterations can make the document unacceptable at a border. The damage need…
Discover more
Iceland's penis museum began with a workplace joke.
Iceland's penis museum began with a workplace joke. Staff gave headmaster Sigurdur Hjartarson a bull's pizzle, helping start a collection that became the…
Discover more
Airport pocket knives can get a second life at auction.
Airport pocket knives can get a second life at auction. State surplus programs resell items passengers leave behind at security, including pocket knives,…
Discover more
More people on the planet currently have access to a mobile phone than have regular access to a safely managed, working indoor toilet.
More people on the planet currently have access to a mobile phone than have regular access to a safely managed, working indoor toilet. The United Nations has…
Discover more
The Game Boy Camera hid a strange surprise behind 'Run'.
The Game Boy Camera hid a strange surprise behind 'Run'. Choosing the option on a menu could bring up a distorted face and a message asking what the user was…
Discover more
Engineers constructed a special stretch of Route sixty-six in New Mexico that features precisely spaced rumble strips designed to play 'America the Beautiful' when you drive over…
Engineers constructed a special stretch of Route sixty-six in New Mexico that features precisely spaced rumble strips designed to play 'America the Beautiful'…
Discover more
Daniel Craig's exhausted Bond farewell was not his final Bond film.
Daniel Craig's exhausted Bond farewell was not his final Bond film. After Spectre, he told an interviewer he did not want to think about another installment…
Discover more
Brown fat turns fuel into heat instead of storing it.
Brown fat turns fuel into heat instead of storing it. Its mitochondria contain a protein called UCP1 that lets energy be released as heat rather than captured…
Discover more
A bet against the pound paid off when Britain abandoned its exchange-rate target.
A bet against the pound paid off when Britain abandoned its exchange-rate target. In September 1992, heavy pressure on sterling overwhelmed attempts to defend…
Discover more