Four years after enduring an accident that nearly left him paralyzed, Australian mountaineer Steve Plain is now the fastest person to reach the top of the tallest mountain on each of the world’s seven continents, shattering the previous record by eight days.

Soon after the glaciers melted at the end of the last Ice Age, our planet was vulnerable to abrupt and dramatic shifts in climate, including prolonged cold snaps that lasted for decades. New research suggests early hunter-gatherers living in the British Isles didn’t just manage to survive these harsh conditions—they…

The Caspian Sea is about as strange as a body of water gets. Its surface still sits 27.5 meters (90 feet) below sea level, and water doesn’t flow out of it—it’s isolated from the oceans, and relies on a series of Asian rivers to maintain its levels.

We are visual beings: Our perception of the world is intrinsically tied to our ability to perceive light. But what about the places where light doesn’t fall? Do places in shadow still encode information for the visual cortex to process? Can shadows actually tell us something meaningful about the landscapes they darken?

Which empire was the biggest throughout history? Which had the most people? Which had the biggest contiguous empire? The map below details all the most powerful empires from history and shows the area each empire covered, the amount of people they had under their rule, the year they reached their political height, the…

Summer, season of roadtrips, is upon us! But where should I go? That, my friends, depends on you.

Whether you want to tell people about what’s it’s really like during Alaska’s shortest days or reveal a relatively unknown bit of local geography, we want to know what always takes people by surprise about your home.

It’s not just people who sometimes have surprising twists and turns in their backstories. Places—whether just a location, a house, or a building—also can lead complicated lives. We want to know about the locations near you (or even a place not so near that you’ve visited) with the most interesting histories.

Glaciers around the world are in retreat, but not Alaska’s Hubbard Glacier. It’s steadily advancing into Disenchantment Bay, threatening to block the entrance to Russell Fjord and disrupt life in the nearby town of Yakutat.

Every city, town, and neighborhood has its own collection of local lore. Today we want to hear yours.

By the turn of the 20th Century, Africa had been invaded, occupied, and colonized by several European nations. This wonderful map by redditor whiplashoo21 shows how the Scramble for Africa divided the Dark Continent.