What lessons can today’s world learn from an ancient Mongol debate? I was watching a Fox News video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XptovfGo1Xo] the other day, about the Green New Deal. O...

Oftentimes, when a popular series is finished, the real stories have only just begun.

A brief history of how humans have tracked time

Pigeons know how to find their way home. And, they’re pretty good at making new homes too.

Battle simulation, allegory, romantic pursue, and ‘the Immortal Game of 1851’.

The royal couple, the wandering peasant, and the son with a gene mutation that changed history.

Humanity is going through a pandemic. Does it sound familiar?

We have become a salt-obsessed society, but maybe we can blame our ancestors for that?a

What a hot cup of coffee tells us about the history of life on Earth

The 17th-century mistake that put the ‘fizz’ into fizzy

How a peculiar fruit captured hearts and imaginations across the world.

Ordovician life, the importance of dirt, and tips for being a lazy gardener

The ancient rules that lie behind divinity, democracy, and Daraprim

The highly processed history of a much overlooked fruit When  something is plain and boring, we call it vanilla. “Vanilla ice cream”,  we say, and think of the “default flavour”: a bit dull,...

Camels in the land of kangaroos? Yes, you got that right.

Don’t wait for creativity to come to you — create it yourself Let’s  travel back in time. Travel way, way back. Back to when our ancestors  roamed the wilderness with nothing more than anima...

Why does the Earth spin one way and not the other? There’s a logical reason. The Sun sits, a big bright blob in the centre of the Solar System. Small and smaller balls spin round in concentr...

In Japan, an year is more than just a number. But is this culturally rich system still relevant today? 30st April 2019 is going to be a momentous day for the people of Japan. For the first t...

The science and history behind the making of butter

How were programming languages built? Here’s a brief history.

We’ve been catching it since time immemorial — so why does the cure still elude us? Have you ever had a cold? I certainly have. In fact, I have one right now, even though you (obviously) can...

Long before JPEGs, typewriting and knitting were making pictures from dots Type the symbols colon, dash, and right-parenthesis, and voìla, you get a smiley face. (Nowadays, most people leave...

The old type of printing-press is gone — but the lines they made us say are still very much around You press a button on the keyboard, and a metal block of the corresponding letter automatic...

No jaywalking allowed? Actually, roads were for people. Here’s how the cars took over. The city centre of Bogotá is quiet. Well, quieter than you might expect. The low purr of engines and th...

They wanted to listen to Sputnik. Instead, they invented the GPS. It’s interesting to track an Ola cab coming to you once you’ve hailed it. To start with, the car is several feet wider than ...

Some organisms never quite worked out how to live with it. This is the story of where they went. Off the coast of Japan, for four months a year, the deep blue sea is transformed into a stunn...

First there were six. Then there were nine. And then there were eight. Now, are there 110? The English word “planet’ has been in use for centuries. It was being used in the time of Old Engli...

If Mars was magnetic, could Life have lived? Among the swirling clouds of cosmic dust, small lumps were slowly forming. Tiny particles happened to get together, and their combined gravity se...

It was first invented in the 1970s. They’re still working on it today. What if any surface could be digitally changed to show whatever pattern or image you wanted? If you could change your r...

They can rise when they’re hungry. They can sink when they’re thirsty. And they prefer things with a pinch of salt. In the shallower parts of the Akanko, or Lake Akan, there live many round ...

What’s a person? The answer’s not nearly as simple as you’d think. On the 16th of March 2017, the Parliament of New Zealand passed a new law recognising Te Awa Tupua as a legal person. That...

As we gear up for electric cars, a smaller revolution has gone relatively unnoticed. Last July, India announced it would end the sale of petrol cars by 2030, and move towards electric ones i...

From Eberhard to Elon Musk, the short but swift history of the world’s most innovative car-company It all started when Martin Eberhard thought of buying a sports-car. He couldn’t bring hims...

Thomas Parker made his electric car in 1874. So why aren’t they more widely used today? All cars need electricity to start. Even if they run on petrol or diesel, they need an initial push to...

From door-latches to iris-scans, the art of blocking people has gone a long way. And it’s still going. In the beginning, people didn’t have passwords. They could just go wherever they wanted...

Who knew that Tomatoes could connect Tintin and The Pirates of the Caribbean?

It might not seem something as constant as length would have a history, but it does. In fact, it goes back to the times of ancient civilizations. To begin with, you can’t really specify the...