World

At first glance, Joan R. Ginther’s story sounds almost too extraordinary to be true. The American mathematician, who earned a doctorate in statistics from Stanford University, won four major Texas Lottery prizes between 1993 and 2010, collecting more than $20 million in total. Her repeated success quickly sparked speculation that she had discovered a mathematical…

Long before forests spread across the continents, before the first animals walked on land and even before the age of dinosaurs, a remarkable process was unfolding beneath Earth’s surface. Deep underground, a series of natural nuclear reactions began inside unusually rich uranium deposits, releasing energy in cycles over an immense stretch of time. Nothing had…

For film fanatics who worship Robert De Niro and would love to have him as their neighbour, this property is a dream come true. An oceanfront Montauk property next to Robert De Niro’s estate has been listed for $22.5 million. According to a report by Gimme Shelter, it includes a “teardown” 1,800 square foot “shack”…

Lake Mead is a man-made lake that lies on the Colorado River, about 24 miles southeast of the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. Formed by the Hoover Dam, it is the largest reservoir in the United States and supplies water to about 20 million people in the states of Arizona, California, Nevada and some in…

Fossils from this period are displayed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. South Dakota is one of the most landlocked states in the United States. It is more than 1,000 miles away from both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. It is hard to imagine that this dry landscape was once covered by water.But…

Every winter in Antarctica, emperor penguins gather in large groups called huddles to survive the cold. Temperatures can fall to -40 degrees Celsius, and strong winds make the weather even harsher. Without huddling together, these penguins would not be able to survive.But a penguin huddle is much more than a group of birds standing close…

During a brutal drought in Tanzania back in 1993, one elephant’s memory ended up making the difference between life and death for her entire family. Researchers tracking family groups in Tarangire National Park found that herds led by older matriarchs, elephants who had lived through droughts before, left the park entirely in search of water…

While most coverage of Norway’s Rogfast tunnel focuses on the record it will hold, the world’s longest and deepest undersea road tunnel, the real story engineers are dealing with sits underground, in rock that has spent millions of years being crushed, fractured and folded into some of the most unpredictable terrain along the entire Norwegian…

For centuries, the ancient Maya have been celebrated for their remarkable achievements in astronomy, mathematics and calendar-making. They tracked the movements of planets with extraordinary precision, developed one of the world’s earliest concepts of zero and created complex calendars that guided agriculture, religion and governance. Yet the brilliant minds behind these discoveries have largely remained…

Japan is an island nation with plenty of wind and a whole lot of ocean, but building wind turbines out at sea has never been simple for the country. Most coastal waters around Japan drop off steeply into deep water within just a few kilometres of shore, which rules out the fixed, seabed-mounted turbines used…