All Stories

A portrait of the scientists who found and examined the Piltdown Man skull (accompanied by a picture of Charles Darwin on the wall).

From forged artworks to fake mummies and even fraudulent orangutan bones, archaeological hoaxes fool scientists and stir the public’s imagination—until the culprits are forced to come clean.

See if you can decipher this twisted tune.

In Tune Twist, we run the lyrics of a hit song through multiple languages, then translate them back into English. Can you figure out what the song is, or who performed it?

“God” and “Jesus” are the only Simpson characters that have five fingers.

It‘s normal for cartoon characters to be missing a digit, but how did the style originate?

Some tables are impossible to snag without the right connections.

Contacting the restaurant a few months (or a year) out, calling relentlessly, or stopping by in case of no-shows might do the trick.

From Henry David Thoreau's 'Autumnal Tints' to the origins of the term 'leaf-peeper.'

This lucky camper scored a permit at Yosemite National Park.

Want to snatch a camping spot at Yosemite before they’re gone? The new availability alert feature on Recreation.gov can help.

A tornado south of Cheyenne, Oklahoma, touched down on April 15, 2012.

Tornadoes can (and do) happen anywhere. Here are 10 of the most terrible twisters to ever take a turn on Earth.

Olive Garden's Never Ending Pasta Bowl has finally returned—for a limited time.

Watch an explorer share what it's like to descend into the Darvaza Gas Crater, also known as the “Gates of Hell.”

Where did this bizarre word come from, and how has it changed over the centuries?

Letting your cat walk across the counter can be pretty gross. We had a cat expert offer some advice on how to nip that habit in the bud.

Even distinguished novelists have had to endure bizarre monikers.

Keep a look out for the origins of this weird phrase.

Popular theories involve pirates—and police.

In Japanese, ‘ringo’ means both “apple” and “apples.”

Across the world’s languages, nouns are surprisingly chameleonic creatures, shape-shifting and category-hopping in ways that can make your head spin.

All five answers to the questions below have something in common. Can you figure it out?

The show shot its cast—including Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, Lisa Kudrow, Matthew Perry, and Matt LeBlanc—to mega-stardom.

In honor of its 30th anniversary, discover even more fun facts about NBC’s hit sitcom, ‘Friends,’ which helped turn its cast—including Jennifer Aniston, Matthew Perry, and Courteney Cox—into household names.

Filming the inside of a tornado is tricky for obvious reasons.

A health care worker prepares to deliver an mpox vaccine during the 2022 outbreak.

All of the WHO's declarations of emergency since 2007 have been for viral diseases, including the most recent one for mpox.

Dogs give plenty of love and deserve clean collars.

Is there a weird smell coming from your dog even after you bathed it? It might be time to wash its collar.

There's definitely some learning going on in there.

This ranking of America’s best community colleges considers everything from tuition rates to postgrad salaries.

Chemical signatures from the Chicxulub asteroid’s impact—which caused a mass extinction on Earth 66 million years ago—match those of carbonaceous meteorites formed beyond Jupiter.