How many architects can you name off the top of your head? Whether that list is on the long or short side, we’d bet Frank Lloyd Wright nabbed a spot. Even if you don’t know much about the man himself, we’d bet the iconic spiral featured in one of his most famous works, the legendary […]
If pollen allergies are getting to you, you are not alone. Every year, plants release billions of pollen grains into the air, specks of male reproductive material that many of us notice only when we get watery eyes and runny noses. However, pollen grains are far more than allergens — they are nature’s time capsules, preserving clues about Earth’s past environments for millions of years. Pollen’s tough outer shell enables it to survive long after its parent plants have disappeared. When pollen grains become trapped in sediments at the bottom of lakes, oceans and riverbeds, fossil pollen can provide scientists with a unique history of the environments those pollen-producing plants were born into. They can tell us about the vegetation, climate and even human activity through time. The types of pollen and the quantities of pollen grains found at a site help researchers reconstruct ancient forests, track sea-level changes and identify the fingerprints of significant events, such as asteroid impacts or civilizations collapsing.
From Braille displays to smart canes and AI apps, visually impaired people can turn to a variety of innovative devices to help them navigate everyday life. The technology available to blind dogs isn’t quite as advanced — but some future engineers at Houston’s Rice University are out to change that. When Grant Belton and AJ
College Students Invent Vibrating Vest to Give Blind Pup a “Second Set of Eyes” Continue Reading »
A campaigner who climbed Mount Everest to install a defibrillator has revealed the device saved a woman’s life — just three weeks later. David Sullivan founded Code Blue CPR, an organization that teaches people lifesaving CPR and installs defibrillators across England, after he lost four close friends, all under the age of 45, to cardiac arrest. Sullivan, 62, has spent the last several years traveling around the world trying to improve cardiac survival rates. Earlier this year, he ventured to the Himalayas, where he installed what he says is the world’s highest defibrillator. The dad of four from Oxted, England, first climbed to an altitude of 22,000 feet to test the defibrillator — and then descended to one of the villages near Everest Base Camp, at just over 16,500 feet, to install the device for use.
The winners of the 2025 National Geographic Traveller Photography Competition have been revealed — and the subjects range from a vibrant rainbow staircase in France to a geothermal pool that looks like a dragon’s eye and more. Every year, National Geographic Traveller (UK) organizes the contest, which is open to amateur and professional photographers from the United Kingdom and Ireland, to highlight the best in travel photography. Now in its 13th year, the contest features six categories: People, City Life, Landscape, Wildlife, Food, and Portfolio. Out of thousands of submissions, 18 photographers were selected as finalists before the winning shots were chosen. “Our competition goes from strength to strength, with this year’s easily one of the strongest yet,” said Pat Riddell, editor of the travel magazine.
In a perfect world, no one would ever bicker or fight with the people they love, but over here in reality, arguments happen. Sometimes they’re over politics or instances of hurt feelings, other times over what temperature the thermostat should be set to. Since arguing is inevitable, the best we can do is get better
About 50 miles off the coast of South Korea, a group of women — some of them in their 80s — start many days by free diving into frigid waters to collect conch, sea urchin, abalone, octopus, and other ocean dwellers for their communities to eat. Jeju Island’s Haenyeo, or “women of the sea,” are
When Nice News first interviewed Scott Shigeoka about curiosity in 2023, he was on the cusp of publishing his book on the subject, Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World. Shigeoka has been busy since then: He took his ideas to the TED stage in November, focusing on curiosity’s potential to
Why Curiosity Expert Scott Shigeoka Suggests Creating a “Powerful Questions List” Continue Reading »
In a tiny village in Spain, the streets are lined with black slate buildings, and the majority of residents are in their golden years. It’s perhaps an unlikely destination for celebrating gay marriage — and yet the municipality of Campillo de Ranas, one of the country’s appropriately dubbed “black villages” because of its dark-stoned dwellings,
This Rustic Spanish Village Has Become a Gay Wedding Hot Spot Continue Reading »
Forget shark week — it’s shark season in New England. The first great white sighting of the season was confirmed May 11 when a seal with a shark bite washed ashore on Nantucket in Massachusetts, and for the second year in a row, researchers in the state will be using an innovative method to help
