Pando, the Trembling Giant   Compared with a mite or a virus, we humans are enormous. But we share this planet with other organisms that, in turn, dwarf us. At 100 feet, a blue whale is about 18 times longer than the average person; a giant sequoia, three times that. There are even larger...

In memoriam: After years of health problems, Facts has finally died   A quick review of the long and illustrious career of Facts reveals some of the world’s most cherished absolutes: Gravity makes things fall down; 2 + 2 = 4; the sky is blue. But for many, Facts’ most...

How do scientists reconstruct the climate of the past? They often turn to ice cores or growth rings from trees or deep-sea corals. But a new study gleans a wealth of weather intel from a largely untapped source: old documents. Researchers from Spain scoured manuscripts from 9th- and...

The Sumerian, Egyptian, Mayan, Judaic, Muslim, Nordic, Hindu, and pretty much most all major world religions that have spanned for thousands of years… all are based on a fundamental concept. Now, we have new Mayan tablets talking about December 21st, 2012 being the “End of Time...

The End Is Not Near At least that’s according to a German expert who says his decoding of a Mayan tablet with a reference to a 2012 date denotes a transition to a new era and not a possible end of the world as others have read it. The interpretation of the hieroglyphs by Sven Gronemeyer...

All knowledge, to all people, for all time, for free Universal access to all knowledge, Brewster Kahle Digital Librarian, Director and Co-founder of the Internet Archive, declared, will be one of humanity’s greatest achievements. We are already well on the way. “We’re building the...

Pharaoh Khufu intends to secure his riches beyond the grave, and into the afterlife. He captures the greatest architect known in his kingdom, and forces him – through a threat to his entire people – to build him an impenetrable tomb: a Pyramid no thief can plunder. The architect sets to...

“We have confidence in our science-based civilization and think it has tenure. In so doing, I think we fail to distinguish between the life-span of civilizations and that of our species. In fact, civilizations are ephemeral compared with species. Humans have lasted at least a million...