Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the psychological theory that people feel mental discomfort when they hold two clashing beliefs, or when their actions…
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Mendelian Inheritance
Mendelian inheritance is the set of principles describing how traits are passed from parents to offspring through discrete units we now call genes.…
The Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a heavily guarded barrier that divided the city of Berlin from 1961 to 1989, separating communist East Germany from democratic…
The Great Sphinx of Giza
The Great Sphinx of Giza is a colossal ancient statue in Egypt, with the body of a lion and the head of a human. Carved from a single mass of…
The Human Skeleton
The human skeleton is the internal framework of bones that supports the body, protects its organs, and allows it to move. An adult skeleton has 206…
The Telescope
The telescope is an instrument that gathers and focuses light to make distant objects appear closer and clearer. Its invention transformed astronomy,…
Chocolate
Chocolate is a food made from the seeds of the cacao tree, enjoyed around the world in countless forms. From a sacred drink of ancient Mesoamerica to…
The Aztec Empire
The Aztec Empire was a powerful state that dominated central Mexico in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, until it was conquered by Spanish…
The Silk Road
The Silk Road was a vast network of trade routes that connected China with Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe for many centuries. More than a…
Astrology
Astrology is the belief that the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars influence human affairs and personalities, and that they can be used…
The Bermuda Triangle
The Bermuda Triangle is a region of the Atlantic Ocean, roughly between Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico, said to be the site of mysterious…
Alchemy
Alchemy was an ancient and medieval practice that sought to transform base metals such as lead into gold, to discover a universal cure for disease,…
How the Universe Will End
The ultimate fate of the universe is one of the deepest questions in science. Cosmologists have proposed several very different endings, and which…
What Killed the Dinosaurs
Around sixty six million years ago, the dinosaurs and many other forms of life suddenly vanished in one of the great mass extinctions in Earth's…
The Origin of the Moon
How the Moon came to be is a question that has fascinated and divided scientists for generations. While one explanation is now favoured, important…
Conservation of Mass
The conservation of mass is the principle that, in any ordinary physical or chemical change, matter is neither created nor destroyed. The total mass…
The Periodic Table
The periodic table is the organizing chart of chemistry, arranging all the known chemical elements by their properties. It is one of the most…
Heliocentrism
Heliocentrism is the understanding that the Earth and the other planets orbit the Sun, rather than the Sun and everything else orbiting the Earth.…
Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is the branch of physics concerned with heat, energy, and work, and how they transform from one form to another. Its laws are among…
Electromagnetism
Electromagnetism is the branch of physics that describes the forces between electric charges and the deep connection between electricity and…
Atomic Theory
Atomic theory is the idea that all matter is made up of tiny particles called atoms. It is one of the most important and successful ideas in all of…