Specialized anatomy means flightless penguins are master swimmers.
Christopher Michel
How did penguins end up with so few bones – and become lightning-fast swimmers?
Allium schoenoprasum , better known as chives.
Andreas Rockstein/Flickr
Plants need light to feed themselves, so they grow in ways that help them collect as much of it as they can. Sometimes that’s straight up, but not always.
Most candy is basically just a heap of sugar.
Atlantide Phototravel/Corbis Documentary via Getty Images
A healthy diet can include some candy. But if you eat too much, it can interfere with your appetite for the stuff your body actually needs.
The Earth spins as it orbits the Sun. Elements of this image furnished by Nasa.
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Only a planet crashing into it might stop the Earth’s spin.
Humans have big brains.
Rido/Shutterstock
Having intelligence helps humans survive.
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In some ways, a space rocket and a passenger aircraft fly much the same. But there is one big reason we can’t just take an aircraft into space.
Lava flows from a fissure in the aftermath of eruptions from the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island, May 22, 2018.
Andrew Richard Hara/Ena Media Hawaii via Getty Images
Volcanoes might seem like nature’s incinerators, but using them to burn up trash would be dangerous and disrespectful to indigenous people who view them as sacred.
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A clue is in insects’ hairy feet.
Some places rarely see the sun.
Donat Photography / EyeEm
Extended periods of rain are most likely found in locations where mountains are near oceans.
The greater shortnosed fruit bat.
Nuwat Phansuwan/Shutterstock
A bat’s body is really good at tolerating diseases.
Brown poop can indicate good health.
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The answer is more complicated than you might think. It has to do with how your body gets rid of old red blood cells.
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Scientists are studying fires in Africa at different times of year to see how the smoke from these fires changes over the year.
We have only sent people to the Moon six times so far.
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A space station on the Moon could be built out of lunar concrete.
You never know where Uncle Sam will make an appearance.
David McNew/Getty Images
The iconic image may have originated with a meat supplier named Samuel Wilson. Or not.
Michael Lee
Crocodiles can survive without food for a long time – even up to more than a year – because of how well they can save their energy.
For almost as long as there have been computers, there have been video games.
Neilson Barnard/Getty Images
Video games are everywhere. So who was the first person to come up with the idea of playing a game on a computer screen?
There’s a lot we don’t know about galaxies.
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We have to look back to the Big Bang to find out.
An illustration shows how, about 65 million years ago, a large asteroid collided with Earth. It hit what is today Mexico and created the Chicxulub crater.
Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library/Getty Images
Impact craters are relatively shallow, so these bowl-shaped “dents” in Earth’s rocky crust can be easily buried or erased by erosion.
A dairy barn in Waitsfield, Vermont, built circa 1890.
Thomas Visser
Barns are practical buildings, designed to safeguard farm animals and equipment. Why are so many of them painted to stand out from the landscape?
It only takes light about eight minutes to go from the Sun to Earth.
loops7/E+ via Getty Images
The fastest things ever made by humans are spacecraft, and the fastest spacecraft reached 330,000 mph – only 0.05% the speed of light. But there are ways to go faster.