Pirates! The legendary outlaws of the seas. For centuries, their names have inspired fear, fascination and countless stories. Captain Flint, Jack Sparrow, Long John Silver, Captain Hook… the list of fictional pirates is almost endless. But behind the legends were real men and women who raided ships, attacked coastal settlements and challenged the great maritime […]
Majestic, alluring and mysterious, the Grand Canyon is one of the world’s most famous natural landmarks. But, despite its imposing name, it is not the largest canyon in every category. Our planet is full of enormous gorges and valleys whose dimensions can be difficult to compare because scient...
“I know your magic, olive tree, you draw blood from the earth for the world.” Federico García Lorca (Spanish poet) The fruit of the olive tree – the olive – has been cultivated for thousands of years and has played an important role in the cultures of the Mediterranean and the Near East....
Space telescopes are astronomical observatories operating above Earth’s atmosphere. Why are they needed? Earth’s atmosphere absorbs or distorts much of the electromagnetic radiation coming from space, while observations across different wavelengths allow astronomers and astrophysicists t...
The territory of the ancient Roman Empire covered not only much of Europe, but also parts of North Africa and Asia, as well as numerous islands. Naturally, maintaining control over such a vast territory required a huge army. But soldiers also needed mobility – the ability to move quickly from one pl...
How many people spend the precious moments of their existence that they have been given in human form simply pursuing material goals, while the achievements of generations of scientists, researchers, and inventors continue to shape civilization? Earning money, buying food, fashionable clothes, an ex...
Perhaps no animal in the world has been misunderstood as much as the elephant. These giant herbivores are the largest land animals alive today, but what do we actually know about elephants? Surprisingly little. To begin with, many people mistakenly consider the mammoth to be an ancestor of the eleph...
The world’s most expensive bottle of wine has sold at auction for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Such rare bottles are often treated as collectibles and investments, and some may never be opened. Large wine cellars, however, are more than stores of valuable bottles: they are living collections th...
The Krupp-built Bagger 288, one of the world’s largest bucket-wheel excavators, made headlines when it was transported across Germany to the Hambach open-cast coal mine. This enormous machine was designed to remove overburden—the soil and rock covering a coal deposit—before mining could begin. The B...
Anyone who thinks cats are merely decorative animals, suitable only for cat shows-or that their only duty is catching mice-is missing a lot. Cats have lived alongside humans for thousands of years, but in the modern era of urban life, people have found them some unusual “jobs.” And cats, for their p...
Holding your breath underwater for as long as possible is a discipline in freediving known as static apnea. In a standard static-apnea attempt, the diver remains still with their face submerged, trying to stay relaxed while holding their breath. Some widely publicized records, however, have been set...
Mount Kailash, also known as Kangrinboqê or Gang Rinpoche, is one of the most sacred mountains in Asia. Revered in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and the Tibetan Bon tradition, it has inspired centuries of pilgrimage, stories, and speculation. Its summit has no confirmed recorded ascent, and climbing...
Sailing ship — a vessel that uses sails and wind power as a significant means of propulsion. Sailing vessels have existed for thousands of years, from the ships of ancient civilizations to the enormous windjammers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, the tradition continues with modern...
The English Channel separates Great Britain from continental Europe — and for centuries it has been much more than a stretch of water on a map. It has been a playground, a challenge and an irresistible invitation to inventors, adventurers and people who apparently looked at a perfectly good boat and...
The Concorde was more than an airliner. It was a technological statement: a passenger aircraft that could cross the Atlantic at twice the speed of sound, fly at around 60,000 feet and turn a seven- to eight-hour London–New York journey into roughly three and a half hours. For 27 years, Concorde was...
Mushrooms are a fascinating group of organisms with characteristics that distinguish them from both plants and animals. There are thousands of mushroom species, but the following ten are particularly interesting for their appearance, growth, culinary value, toxicity, or unusual biology. 1Porcini The...
What makes a drug dangerous? Is it the chance of overdose, the risk of addiction, the damage it causes to the body, or the harm it can cause to families and society? There is no single answer. In fact, one of the most famous scientific attempts to answer this question produced some surprisingly cont...
If small cars exist, why shouldn’t there be small 4x4s? They deserve just as much love as large SUVs and off-roaders, while their compact dimensions can make them surprisingly capable on narrow, muddy or snowy roads. And there is another obvious advantage: smaller vehicles can be more economic...
The use of alternative energy sources is an important part of the global effort to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Wind power has become one of the world’s major renewable energy technologies, with countries across every continent investing in new wind farms. This ranking is based on **tota...
Throughout history, people have collected almost everything imaginable. Some collections have eventually grown into museums devoted to subjects that are anything but ordinary. Here is our selection of ten of the world’s most unusual museums. 1 Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments Located in...