Nature · The Story
The Flower That Smells Like Death
The titan arum grows a single bloom taller than a person, heats it up and fills the air with the stench of rotting meat. It flowers rarely, lasts barely two days, and draws crowds who queue for hours to smell it.
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The Archive
71 articles, filed with more enthusiasm than order.
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Four fascinating things… for “plants”
Nature · The Story
The Flower That Smells Like Death
The titan arum grows a single bloom taller than a person, heats it up and fills the air with the stench of rotting meat. It flowers rarely, lasts barely two days, and draws crowds who queue for hours to smell it.
Nature · The Deep Dive
The Salamander That Never Grows Up
The axolotl spends its whole life looking like a smiling tadpole with frilly gills. It can regrow lost legs, parts of its heart and even its spinal cord. In the wild, it has almost vanished.
Mysteries · The Theory
The Book Nobody Can Read
Six centuries old, written in an unknown script, illustrated with plants that don't exist. The Voynich Manuscript has defeated wartime codebreakers, linguists and computers. Here is what we actually know.
Nature · The Story
The Banana Your Grandparents Ate
The banana in your kitchen isn't the one people ate in 1940. That one was wiped out by a fungus — and the replacement is under threat too.
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- The Flower That Smells Like Death Nature
- The Laughter Epidemic of 1962 Society
- The Town With a Fire Underneath Modern World
- The Devil's Interval That Was Never Banned Music
- The Giant in the Farmyard Weird
- 72 Seconds in 1977 Space
- The Year Civilisation Fell History
- Why Is the Sky Blue — and Not Violet? Science
- The River That Boils Geography
- Henry Ford's Lost City in the Jungle Modern World
- The Glacier That Bleeds Nature
- The Day a Ship Destroyed a City History
- The Sound From the Bottom of the World Mysteries
- The Ghost Ship Mary Celeste Mysteries
- The Fake History of the Bathtub History
- The Sound That Rises Forever Music
- The Bay That Glows in the Dark Nature
- The Missile Guided by Pigeons Technology
- The Glowing Balls of the Storm Science
- The Land No Country Wants Geography
- The Jar That Might Have Been a Battery History
- The Day a Jet Ran Out of Fuel at 41,000 Feet Aviation
- The Salamander That Never Grows Up Nature
- The Loneliest Whale in the World Nature
- The Secret Song Mozart Stole by Ear Music
- The Island Where Money Sat at the Bottom of the Sea Economics
- The Deepest Hole Ever Dug Science
- The Book Nobody Can Read Mysteries
- The War That Lasted Less Than an Hour History
- Why Don't We Remember Being Babies? Psychology
- The Jellyfish That Hits Rewind Nature
- The Summer Strasbourg Couldn't Stop Dancing Weird
- The Man Who Didn't Believe the Computer People
- The Concrete That Heals Itself Ancient World
- The Emus Won Modern World
- The Chocolate Bar That Melted in the Lab Technology
- If You Replace Every Plank, Is It Still the Same Ship? Philosophy
- Why Medieval Knights Keep Fighting Snails Art
- The Day Boston Drowned in Molasses History
- The Man With a Hole in His Head Psychology
- The Year Without a Summer Science
- The Explosion That Flattened a Forest Space
- The Girl Who Found Sea Dragons People
- The Pope Who Put a Corpse on Trial History
- The Lake That Exploded Geography
- The Goat Behind Door Number Three Random
- Where Is Everybody? Space
- The Banana Your Grandparents Ate Nature
- When a Tulip Cost as Much as a House Economics
- The 2,000-Year-Old Computer Ancient World
- The Temple Older Than Farming Ancient World
- The Day the Sun Set Telegraphs on Fire Space
- The Alien in the Aquarium Nature
- What Happens When a Whale Dies Nature
- The Colony That Vanished Mysteries
- The Tent Cut Open From the Inside Mysteries
- The Pill That Works Even When You Know It's Fake Psychology
- The Loneliest Place on Earth Geography
- The Mixtape We Sent to the Stars Music
- Can Anyone Actually Hear a Stradivarius? Music