Plants can detect sound — roots grow toward the frequency of running water even without moisture cues.

Aerogel is the world's lightest solid, so insulating it can hold a flower over a blowtorch.

The invisible hand, described by Adam Smith, refers to the self-regulating nature of the marketplace through supply and demand.

You are more likely to be struck by lightning than attacked by a shark.

Extremophiles have been found in conditions previously thought impossible for life — boiling hot springs, salt flats, and deep ice.

The Dust Bowl of the 1930s turned 400,000 square km of US farmland into desert through drought and poor farming practices.

Heat lightning is ordinary lightning from a storm too far away for thunder to be heard.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater was built directly over a waterfall in Pennsylvania — and required structural reinforcement decades later.

The corpse flower (Amorphophallus titanum) blooms rarely and produces the smell of rotting flesh to attract flies.