The Earth is not always your friend, and the planet upon which we developed may not treat us gently despite the effort with which we have colonized so much of its surface. In this account, we move beyond familiar floods, tornados and earthquakes to discover the really weird ways that an active and sometimes badly…
Humans think about having the potential to live forever, while at the same time thinking of most animal life as short and sweet. We’re pet owners, after all. Pets don’t live particularly long. In nature, every winter sees many animals die after mating, and continuing on their next generation. On the farms, our food is…
One of the most immediately surprising facts about fungi may be how to pronounce the word: fun-jai, not fun-guy. But the fun(gi) doesn’t stop there. From fungal intelligence to saving the world, fungi are full of surprises. 10. They’re the Most Populous Kingdom on the Planet We don’t know how many species (of any kind,…
The tree of life may be a popular concept in folklore, mythology, and religious stories around the world. Yet in the world of biology, there exists a variety of veritable “trees of death” poised to cause great harm to any human that comes into contact with them. While not quite the man-eating tree of some…
The Butterfly Effect principle simply states that, given enough time, whatever event, no matter how small, can and will have tremendous reverberations into the future. And when talking about past disasters, natural or otherwise, we always have to keep in mind that, even though devastating, they are part of what brought us here in the…
Once you get past the potatoes and the other humdrum members of the family, nightshades can be fascinating plants—often frighteningly so. Whether strikingly beautiful or modestly mediocre, many belie deadly poisons, potent psychoactive effects, and grisly albeit spellbinding histories. According to one theory, they might even have wiped out the dinosaurs. So it’s no surprise…
For the many achievements made by our men and women of science in understanding the world and everything in it, there are still a lot of things we don’t know, or we’re not completely sure about. Other things, while more logical for our level of understanding, are so rare that, when they do happen, they…
Life, in all its shapes and sizes, is extraordinary. The simple idea of any species’ existence in the first place is a miracle in and of itself. Nature, through its painstakingly slow process of trial and error known as evolution, has been made in such a way that almost every nook and cranny on the…
YouTube videos are great and all, but nothing beats the real thing. The advantages of YouTube is that people from all across the world, with a few exceptions, can film and upload videos, sharing their experiences with us. This makes us more connected with each other, for better or worse, and it brings us in…
Mapping things is an incredibly useful tool for humanity. By analyzing a given situation or development and then putting the results on a map, scientists and researchers can better understand and predict future trends around the world. And more detailed that map is, the more accurate the predictions are. Now, maps don’t even need to…
Like it or not, resources are finite. If we don’t use them carefully, we’ll run out. But while we’ve all heard the scary stories about peak oil, we’re guessing you had no idea that we’re running the risk of hitting peak banana. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXufGIqkTns Read the full list.
The usual candidates for this kind of list would be things like the highest mountain, or the longest river, or the biggest forest, or canyon, or other obvious stuff like that. But you probably already learned those things in school, and we here at TopTenz aren’t about the obvious and instead focus on bringing you…