Cholera bacteria infect more effectively with a simple twist of shape

NASA plans mission to a metal-rich asteroid worth quadrillions

Why Most Planets Will Either Be Lush or Dead

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is shutting down “The Greatest Show on Earth” after 146 years

Scientists close in on the true mass of the Milky Way

Study finds association between eating hot peppers and decreased mortality

Face of 9,500-Year-Old Man Revealed for First Time

China’s Zhou Youguang, father of Pinyin writing system, dies aged 111

How Antarctic bases went from wooden huts to sci-fi chic

Poisoned, shot and beaten: why cyanide alone may have failed to kill Rasputin

That Time I Turned a Routine Traffic Ticket into the Constitutional Trial of the Century

Scientists find a way to regenerate skin that may completely prevent scarring

Resistance to the Antibiotic of Last Resort Is Silently Spreading

Engineers Have Created Biocompatible Microrobots That Can be Implanted Into the Human Body

Video: Artist John Edmark makes sculptures that appear to writhe when spinning under a strobe light

They Called Her Mrs. Sherlock Holmes

A Break in the Search for the Origin of Complex Life

This desolate English path has killed more than 100 people

Why open offices are bad for us

A handful of GIFs illustrating how some silent film special effects were accomplished

50 million year old fossilized tomatillos found in Argentina

When the Chinese Were Unspeakable

How ‘Sherlock of the library’ cracked the case of Shakespeare’s identity

Queen Elizabeth I’s long-lost skirt to go on display after being found on a church altar in Herefordshire

How Honeybees Helped the Internet

The people who can’t go numb at the dentist’s

The undocumented cryptographic capabilities of the Barbie typewriter

Pluto Has Towers of Ice 1,600 Feet Tall

Scientists Find DNA Of Human Ancestors In Cave Floor Dirt

The man who tracks down and brings home lost military medals

A vast new tomb for the most dangerous waste in the world

Feed Your Kids Peanuts, Early and Often, New Guidelines Urge

Afternoon naps could improve thinking and memory skills, says new research

Stars may collide in a stunning “red nova” in 2022

Sugar: Science can’t prove it and the industry denies it, but Gary Taubes is convinced that the sweet stuff kills.

Giant iceberg poised to break off from Antarctic shelf

Isotope Mapping and DNA Sequencing Give Forensic Science a Boost

Cosmic radio bursts tracked to home galaxy for first time

The Detective of Northern Oddities

A newly discovered 3,500-year-old Greek tomb, and what it tells us about Western civilization

How Russians Imagined the Year 2017 In 1960

Video: The Absurdity of Detecting Gravitational Waves

The secret nuclear bunker built as the UK’s last hope

Dementia rates ‘higher near busy roads’

One Man’s Quest to Change the Way We Die

Study: Pigeons outperform humans at the Monty Hall Problem

At some point—hopefully many years from now—Queen Elizabeth II will pass away. Here’s what will follow.

Micro-dosing: The Drug Habit Your Boss Is Gonna Love

Anti-surveillance clothing aims to hide wearers from facial recognition

The Mysterious Disappearance of Keith Davis

Literary Agents: Rethinking the legacy of writers who worked with the CIA

Scientists have decided that the mesentery in the human digestive system is a discrete organ

The spy with no name

How can humans clean up our space junk?

Ruminations on the future of food

Death on the hippie trail: A young man’s mysterious disappearance in the Himalayas

“…on average, the ones who swear the most also have the biggest vocabulary overall” (autoplay video)

The Electronic Ears That Listen to Secret Nuclear Tests

The Mystery of Seahorse Key’s Missing Bird Colony Veers Into Strange Territory

Unexpected Risks Found In Editing Genes To Prevent Inherited Disorders