Life's Little Mysteries

The Great Wall of China was built to defend the empire from enemy armies, but now it acts as a unifying symbol and a useful propaganda tool for the ruling Communist Party.

Can rabbits grow horns, as the legendary jackalope does?

Some sea creatures have arms, others have tentacles and a few have both. So, what's the difference between these appendages?

The speed of light moves 1 million times faster than the speed of sound. What would happen if the speed of sound sped up to match it?

Giving aliens directions to Earth might be tricky, but scientists have some ideas for how to do it.

Modern Egyptologists have several ideas as to why the ancient Egyptians stopped building pyramids.

Franklin was being sarcastic. But dig into the story of how the myth arose and it just gets weirder and weirder.

Fetuses show preliminary facial expressions that look like cries starting around 24 to 35 weeks. These facial movements of crying are soundless and too subtle to be felt by the mother.

Zebras' black-and-white coloration is iconic, but what color are their stripes?

Historians are still uncertain about what happened to the vanished English colonists at Roanoke, but they have several theories.

Reference Although millions of people celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on Dec. 25, most scholars agree that he wasn't born on that day, or even in the year 1 A.D.

During a lunar eclipse, the face of the moon will turn a shade of red. Here's why.

Scientists recently found that a so-called jumping gene may have jumped ship millions of years ago, and taken our tails with it.

The number of satellites orbiting Earth is skyrocketing, and this may be causing more problems than solutions in the long term.

Here's what would happen to an astronaut's body if they didn't have a spacesuit protecting them in outer space.

Fictional cyborgs have appeared in science fiction since the 1920s, but who was the first human to fuse with technology and become a real-life cyborg?

Humanity shaped the world at the expense of many species, which were driven to extinction through our activities. How would Earth be different if modern humans never existed?

The effectiveness of the flu shot varies from year to year, but often, it isn't very high.

The president wears many hats, but how is the Commander in Chief's time spent?