The Spanish crown eventually ceded it to the state, and it became a national monument in 1870 ... aware of its geographic isolation on the peninsula and the inevitability of its fall.

(See National Geographic’s first map of Pluto.) Then, in 2005, Mike Brown, a professor of astronomy at Caltech, crashed the party upon discovering Eris, similar in size to Pluto and also in the ...

Greeks don’t hike. You’ll hear this everywhere you go in Greece — usually from the locals themselves. They can’t see the point, apparently; uses up too much beach time. If that’s the ...

During the turmoil and wars of the Renaissance, tarot’s earliest users found a similar solace. This story appeared in the September/October 2024 issue of National Geographic History magazine.

Spending time in nature is important for your mental health. But studies show that even just listening to birds singing can ease symptoms of anxiety and depression. A European robin, Erithacus ...

While investigating the origin of the rings, National Geographic Explorer and photographer Laurent Ballesta and his team found a riot of colorful sea life, including yellow coral that is seldom ...

Vitamin D also plays important roles in muscle movement, communication between nerves, and immune defenses against bacteria and viruses, according to the National Institutes of Health’s Office ...

A scientist examines an axolotl x-ray at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City. What’s more, understanding axolotl genetics could ...

When it comes to cardiovascular exercise, running is in a class of its own. It's a sport that has endured millennia—the oldest and once only Olympic event was a sprint known as the stadion ...

Diagnoses have climbed by 175 percent in just the last decade—with the greatest increases in girls and women. Here’s how our understanding of autism is changing. Girls and women are being ...

If you’ve taken a long flight in a seat with limited recline recently, the discomfort of the experience is likely still painfully fresh. While airline seat size and pitch (aka legroom) have ...

A new study finds that microplastics and nanoplastics accumulate at higher levels in the brain than in the liver and kidney. A colorized computed tomography (CT) scan of the brain revealing blood ...