Japan just opened to tourists for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, echoing the island country’s isolationist policies during the feudal era.

There were many other species of human on the planet. Svante Pääbo discovered one of them.

The monsoon rains were not always so reliable.

If you don't mourn in North Korea, you risk being executed.

For decades, the Communist Party of China has relied on reeducation camps to reform "parasites" and persuade people to support the communist cause.

Was our distant ancestor a biped or not – i.e., human or not human?

"Spanish Stonehenge" contains 526 giant stones, three circular burial sites, a quarry, and four necropolises.

Advances in ancient DNA analysis gave researchers a new way to trace the movements of peoples across Eurasia.

On the morning of June 30, 1908, an explosion of more than 10 megatons occurred above the sparsely populated Siberian Taiga. What caused the so-called Tunguska event?

From Ramses II to Alexander the Great, these leaders helped shaped the world we know today.

The “first-of-its-kind” archeological find is being reburied despite the fact that researchers haven’t finished studying it.

Sex can be a death trap even for modern toad and frog species.

Anything, good or bad, about Henry Ford can be contradicted — except his ambition and his work.

Civilization was built on ceremony.

Despite the fact that both species shared a similarly large neocortex, scientists still have many questions about how closely the function of their brains resembled our own.

Roundworms at the monastery.

Looking at ourselves in a mirror — or on a video call — shapes our sense of self. But what you see is not what others see.

Mesopotamian beer was not flavored with hops, and it was probably on the thick, porridgey side.

Long before the birth of Julius Caesar, the Roman Republic appointed all-powerful dictators to protect their state in times of crisis. They were remarkably self-restrained and obedient to the constitution.

Many people lived long enough to grow old in the olden days, too.

Bloodcurdling war cries, shrieking elephants, and whistling arrows all made soldiers flee in terror.

More than mindless bloodshed, the gladiatorial games were organized sports. Gladiators were treated as world-class athletes, receiving superior diets and medical care.

Hint: It wasn't always an asteroid.

NASA was dangerously cavalier about the dangers of the shuttle launches.

We've been somewhat lucky in the past...

Commodus lived the anti-Stoic life, pursuing lust, narcissism, and self-indulgence.

Some artifacts drown in shipwrecks, others are taken by the tide. Many others will vanish as a result of climate change and rising sea levels.

Rock art in northern Australia depicts marsupial lions, giant kangaroos, and other megafauna that populated the Land Down Under long ago.  

The 557-million-year-old specimen challenges the theory that animal body plans were laid out in the Cambrian explosion.

Human beings are descendants of these early tetrapods – at least those who made a new life on land.