Science & Nature
Olive Sea Snake
The olive sea snake's "attacks" on divers aren't attacks at all. Discover the venomous Great Barrier Reef serpent and the surprising truth behind its behavior
Platypus
Platypus is an egg-laying, venomous mammal of eastern Australia that hunts underwater by electric sense, one of the strangest animals on Earth today.
Which Moon Is The Largest?
Ganymede outsizes the planet Mercury and hides an ocean that may hold more water than all the seas on Earth's surface.
White Rhino
White Rhino is the largest rhino and, after the elephant, among the heaviest land animals, a grey grazer split between a recovery and a near extinction.
Porcupine
Porcupine is a heavily armored rodent cloaked in tens of thousands of barbed quills, which detach on contact but, despite the myth, are never shot.
Which Planet Is The Least Dense?
Lighter than water despite its size, Saturn measures a mere 0.69 g/cm3. Here is why the solar system heavyweight is really its lowest-density world.
What if Earth Stopped Spinning?
See what would happen if Earth stopped spinning, from catastrophic winds and ocean surges to year-long days and a transformed climate.
What Animals Live In The Taiga?
The harsh environment of the taiga regions of the world limit the biodiversity in such places to species that can successfully adapt to the extreme environment.
Pallas Cat
Pallas Cat, or manul, wears the thickest fur of any wild cat, a house-cat-sized ambush hunter of Central Asia's frigid, wind-scoured high steppes.
Striped Hyena
Striped Hyena is the only hyena found outside sub-Saharan Africa, a shaggy, bone-cracking scavenger of dry country now thinning toward Near Threatened.
What Happens If GPS Goes Down
Pretty much everything we do with a phone today incorporates GPS at some point. If we were to suddenly lose our skyward helper, it would cause many issues.
The Fastest Birds In The World
The White-throated Needletail is the fastest in horizontal flight at 170 km/h, while the Peregrine Falcon reaches 389 km/h in dives.
South China Tiger
South China Tiger is the only tiger subspecies extinct in the wild yet still alive in captivity, with no confirmed sighting in about half a century.
What Animals Live in the Atlantic Ocean?
The Atlantic Ocean makes up about 29% of the total world ocean waters. It is home to a wide variety of aquatic plant life and marine animals.
Why Uranus Spins Sideways
Uranus is the butt of countless childish jokes, but there are truly interesting qualities to it. Here's why Uranus spins sideways.
Animals With More Than One Heart
Various animals have different heart structures; some, like octopuses and earthworms, have multiple hearts, while others use alternative systems.
Asian Black Bear
Asian Black Bear, or moon bear, is the most tree-climbing of all bears, marked by a pale crescent chest and now Vulnerable to logging and the bile trade.
Black Panther
Black Panther is not a species but a melanistic leopard or jaguar, its rosettes still faintly visible as ghost markings beneath the all-black coat.
Which Planet Is The Smallest?
Although the context can change the answer to this question, Mercury is the smallest planet, circling closest to the Sun.
Caracal
Caracal is a reddish, tuft-eared cat of the dry country of Africa and Asia, built to spring more than ten feet up and pluck birds out of mid-air.
Serval
Serval is a slender African cat with the longest legs and largest ears of any feline, a sound-hunting rodent specialist that leaps to snatch its prey.
How Long Would It Take To Travel To Each Planet?
Moving at a speed of 50,000-miles per hour, it would take 32-days to reach Venus, the closest planet, and 2,250-days to reach Neptune, the furthest planet.
Mugger Crocodile
Mugger Crocodile is a broad-snouted freshwater crocodile of the Indian subcontinent, known for digging burrows, waiting out droughts, and trekking overland.
Indochinese Tiger
Indochinese Tiger is one of the rarest big cats on Earth, a darker, mid-sized tiger now breeding only in Thailand and Myanmar after a steep decline.
Speed Of Sound VS Speed Of Light
Light is about 880,000 times faster than sound, but the real differences are stranger: what each needs to travel through, and what slows them down.
The 10 US Cities With the Longest Summers
Some US cities barely see winter at all. Ranked by NOAA normals, here are the ten with the longest thermal summers, from Honolulu to Fort Lauderdale.
Banded Sea Krait
Banded Sea Krait is a venomous Indo-Pacific sea snake that hunts eels across the reef yet returns to land to rest, mate, and lay its eggs on shore.
Indian Python
Indian Python is a heavy-bodied, nonvenomous constrictor of the Indian subcontinent, a patient rodent hunter now listed as Near Threatened in the wild.
Which Planet Has The Longest Year?
As the rhyme goes, Mercury is the one, closest to the shining sun. But which planet is furthest, and which has the longest year?
Green Tree Python
The green tree python is a nonvenomous, tree-dwelling constrictor of New Guinea and far northern Australia, famous for its tidy looped resting coil.
Bull Snake
Bull Snake is harmless, yet it hisses, coils, and buzzes its tail like a rattlesnake. The bluff fools coyotes and hawks, and gets the snake killed by people.
Which Planet Has The Deepest Canyon?
The deepest canyon in our galaxy is found on Mars, known as Valles Marineris, which plunges nearly seven miles deep and is 2,400 miles long.
Eastern Brown Snake
Eastern Brown Snake (Pseudonaja textilis) is the world's second-most venomous land snake and the leading cause of snakebite deaths in Australia.
Corn Snake
The corn snake is a calm, nonvenomous rodent hunter native to the southeastern US, and it is one of the most popular pet snakes anywhere in the world.
Which Moons Are Bigger Than A Planet?
Ganymede and Titan are wider than the planet Mercury. Inside the buried ocean, the moon-made magnetic field, and the rule that makes them moons.
Which Moon Hides The Biggest Ocean Under Its Ice?
Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon, hides an ocean 60 miles deep beneath 95 miles of ice, likely the biggest body of water in the solar system.