On World Oceans Day, Nat Geo cartographers say the swift current circling Antarctica keeps the waters there distinct and worthy of their own name: the Southern Ocean. | Continue reading
The South China Sea was once named for its ruling empire. Now Vietnam and China are sparring over the area. | Continue reading
Dozens of vessels that brought gold-crazed prospectors to the city in the 19th century still lie beneath the streets. | Continue reading
Semi-aquatic anoles have a nifty trick for extending their underwater escapades. | Continue reading
A fast radio burst, one of the most perplexing phenomena seen by astronomers, has been detected among a nearby population of ancient stars. | Continue reading
Nine decades on, survivors of the 1918 flu still produce antibodies that can neutralise the reconstructed virus | Continue reading
Native to China’s Yangtze River, these fish grew 23 feet in length, but haven’t been spotted since 2003. | Continue reading
Electric car batteries contain critical minerals like cobalt and lithium. We’ll need to recycle them unless we want to keep mining the earth for new ones. | Continue reading
Conservationists worry the animals, which are vital food sources for many species along the U.S. East Coast, will decline in number. | Continue reading
National Geographic Explorer Joyce Poole reflects on her life’s achievement: an ethogram cataloguing nearly 50 years of data on African elephant behavior. | Continue reading
Once mainly a scourge of VR headsets, cybersickness seems to be on the rise as the pandemic pushes our bodies to their digital limits. | Continue reading
Before tobacco and factories, the cancer rate in Britain was estimated at 1%. A new archaeological study says different. | Continue reading
Traveling at about 20 feet a year, the muddy mystery has no obvious driver—and so far, it can't be stopped. | Continue reading
David Rubenstein practices what he calls patriotic philanthropy. Among his efforts: buying an original 1297 Magna Carta, an Emancipation Proclamation, and a Declaration of Independence for public display. | Continue reading
A provocative new study suggests that medieval plagues spread via fleas and lice on people. | Continue reading
While its spread in India is worrying, preliminary studies show vaccines are still effective against the viral newcomer. | Continue reading
The pandemic has dealt a harsh blow to an already struggling industry. But intercity buses provide a vital service—and a link to a complex national history. | Continue reading
The set of rocks strewn throughout Baltimore likely represent a slice of prehistoric seafloor from a now-vanished ocean. | Continue reading
New find pries open an enduring question: why two ancient superpowers abruptly turned from diplomacy to brutality. | Continue reading
With artificial intelligence and painstaking study of sperm whales, scientists hope to understand what these aliens of the deep are talking about. | Continue reading
A photographer explores the hidden world of the hikikomori, and the human bonds that draw them out. | Continue reading
Water quality, wildlife habitat, and fish stocks have decreased as a result of high fertilizer use and other pressures | Continue reading
Once the largest human-made object in space, the Russian space station Mir crashed to Earth 20 years ago this month, ending 15 years of triumph and near-tragedy. | Continue reading
Analysis for Nat Geo shows pangolin, rhino, ivory seizures during COVID-19 had steep decline. | Continue reading
The image above is an extreme close-up of a common British insect called a planthopper. You’re looking at it from below, at the point where its two hind legs connect to its body. In the middle, you can clearly see that the top of each leg has a row of small teeth, which interlock … | Continue reading
As a tangible symbol of a nation’s identity, banknotes are a window into history—from South Africa’s reckoning with apartheid to the challenges of building a unified country after Bosnia’s civil war. | Continue reading
The unsettling discoveries along the Salish Sea prompted talk of serial killers, aliens, and psychics. The truth is even more unexpected. | Continue reading
The first broad look at all of the gases that affect how the Amazon works—not just CO2—reveals a system on the brink. | Continue reading
Action, reaction, overreaction: Once the virus gets in, the immune system can overreact—with deadly consequences. | Continue reading
By hiking at night, nature lovers gain new perspectives while escaping crowds. | Continue reading
The lavish discoveries could undermine the idea that state power is almost exclusively a product of male-dominated societies, researchers say. | Continue reading
"It's a place where Earth is so close to its limit, it's almost like another planet." | Continue reading
Trailblazer Nellie Bly first went undercover in a New York psychiatric hospital in 1887, when she exposed its horrific conditions. | Continue reading
Flooding in 2001 near Jiroft, Iran, exposed the ruins of an ancient necropolis from a Bronze Age culture that flourished alongside Mesopotamia. | Continue reading
Mathematicians continue to calculate, solve, and create on chalkboards, even in the digital age. A photographer captures samples of their work. | Continue reading
We know putting things off is bad for us. But an evolutionary battle in our brains can drive us to procrastinate—and lockdowns are adding fuel to the fire. | Continue reading
A wingsuit BASE jumper just live-streamed his own death—marking the latest fatality in the sport’s deadliest year. We investigate why both highly experienced pilots and beginners are dying in this extreme sport. | Continue reading
From water pumps to musical automatons, Ismail al-Jazari's extraordinary machines ranged from practical to playful, delighting farmers and kings alike. | Continue reading
Researchers from all over the world collaborated to sequence the koala genome, shedding light on some of their biological secrets. | Continue reading
The United States is approaching a grim milestone—the impending moment when half a million Americans will have lost their lives to the coronavirus. | Continue reading
A sweeping analysis shows an overall downward trend in bee diversity worldwide, raising concerns about these crucial pollinators. | Continue reading
A black-footed ferret that died more than 30 years ago has been cloned using preserved cells, which could help inject diversity into the inbred, endangered population. | Continue reading
Manhattan is in the midst of an unprecedented tall building boom that's radically changing its skyline. | Continue reading
The archaeological discovery at Sutton Hoo—a sensation depicted in the film 'The Dig'—is perhaps the last gasp of a lavish English medieval funerary tradition. | Continue reading
The bizarre deaths of hikers at Russia's Dyatlov Pass have inspired countless conspiracy theories, but the answer may lie in an elegant computer model based on surprising sources. | Continue reading
Sixty years ago, at the height of the Cold War, a B-52 bomber disintegrated over a small Southern town. An eyewitness recalls what happened next. | Continue reading
Can Canada develop its climate leadership and its lucrative oil sands too? | Continue reading
From basic pleats to complex interlocking folds, origami could deliver better fitting, more comfortable, and more stylish face coverings. | Continue reading