Wild Life: Prairie Dog LanguageEach week, Atlas Obscura is providing a new short excerpt from our upcoming book, Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders (). In the early twentieth century, some prairie dog towns stretched for hundreds of miles.
The Supermarket Scanner Changed the Way We Buy Groceries ForeverInvented 50 years ago, the curious box deciphered an arcane kind of code to offer shoppers a trip into the future.
Five Types of Trees You Can Safely Plant Close to Your HouseIf you would like to plant a tree in your yard but you’re not sure that you have the space because you've heard it's a bad idea to plant a tree too close to your house, you’re in luck.
UK's Graduate Visa programs may stay, but Sunak plans crackdown on foreign education agentsUK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to announce a crackdown on agents marketing graduate visa schemes overseas, aiming to project a tough stance on migration before this year’s general elections.
Recycled sewage, public health and the memory of the world: Books in briefThe cover of this revolutionary book shows a recycling symbol, with arrows of clear blue water. Yet the subject is sewage. Environmental and water journalist Peter Annin is satisfied that recycled sewage can be drunk, after studying water recycling for two decades.
An early retiree explains the IRS rule he uses to withdraw $20,000 a year of his retirement money penalty-free even though he hasn't reached age 59 ½Eric Cooper received memorable money advice from a boss in his early 20s. "He said, very sternly, 'Make sure to contribute as much as you can to your 401(k) with each paycheck.
The Historic Trump Court Cases That We Cannot SeeOver the past month, in two courtrooms some two hundred and fifty miles apart, the government was hearing arguments in two of the most consequential court cases in American history. In New York, at the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, a judge was presiding over the first criminal trial of a former U.
A Brief History of the World’s First PlanetariumIn 1912, Oskar von Miller, an electrical engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum, had an idea: Could you project an artificial starry sky onto a dome, as a way of demonstrating astronomical principles to the public?
How today’s antiwar protests stack up against major student movements in historyCampus protests for Gaza may be the biggest of the 21st century.
Olympics: New sports vie for places: Dodgeball, frisbee, teqballAfter succeeding Jacques Rogge as IOC president in 2013, Thomas Bach was forthright in his assessment of what the Olympic Games needed to do to stay relevant. For all that London 2012 reached a record-breaking global audience of 3.6 billion, the IOC had concerns.
The Toilet Theory of the InternetGoogle is serving an audience that wants quick and easy results. That may lead to disaster. Allow me to explain my toilet theory of the internet.
What Myths About the Anthropocene Get WrongThe concept of the Anthropocene epoch was born in February 2000 out of a moment of spontaneity. Chemist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen had been listening to a narrative emerging at an international convening of scientists in Mexico.
Why children with disabilities are missing school and losing skillsOn a recent school day in Del Norte County, Calif., in one of the state's northernmost school districts, 17-year-old Emma Lenover sits at home on the couch. In some ways, Emma is a typical teen. She loves Disneyland and dance class.
Israel’s Politics of ProtestLast Saturday night, a few days after protesters against the war in Gaza occupied a building at Columbia University, a reporter for Israel’s Channel 12 interviewed Eric Adams, the Mayor of New York.
Donald Trump already won the only Supreme Court fight that matteredThis case is about delaying his trial, and the GOP-controlled Supreme Court has given him everything he could reasonably hope for and more. On Thursday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Trump v.