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Having inhabited the earth for hundreds of thousands of years, one would think that we have explored every nook and cranny and found every possible species. Turns out that such is not the case! A team of scientists recently stumbled upon a magical 'lost world' complete with its own unique ecosystem and species....

On Thursday, November 7th, 2013, exactly a month after it began its extensive travel schedule, the Sochi Olympics torch will embark on the longest leg of its 40,000-mile relay - A trip to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz spacecraft along with three new crew members: Russia's Mikhail Tyurin, NASA's Rick Mastracchio and Japan's Koichi Wakata....

Japan has long been known for its cat cafes - places where the pet-starved residents of the country can enjoy a hot cup of java whilst being nuzzled by some loving kitties. Now there is a new trend that seems to be emerging across the country's capital, Tokyo - owl-themed cafes, complete with the live nocturnal birds in tow!...

On Sunday, November 3rd, Hindus, Jains and Sikhs all over the world will celebrate Diwali. Also called Deepavali, which means row of lights, the ancient celebration is the biggest and most eagerly awaited of all Indian festivals....

A little worn out after all the Halloween festivities? Then you are in luck because this weekend, it's time to 'Fall Back,' which means that at 2 am on Sunday, November 3rd, most Americans will add an extra hour to their day by moving the clocks back. This age-old tradition that goes all the way back to World War One is observed in other parts of the world too - However, the dates differ, with most changing their clocks about a month earlier....

Having lived in Florida all his life, 11-year-old Peyton Robertson is well aware of the havoc caused by hurricanes. At the tender age of 4 he suffered through Hurricane Wilma, one of the most intense tropical cyclones from the Atlantic and then just last year experienced the deadliest, most destructive storm of the 2012 season and the second most costliest of all US storms....

For many of us the onset of winter means shorter daylight hours and therefore less exposure to the sun, but for the 35,000 residents of Rjukan in Norway it means complete darkness. That's because the tiny town situated deep in a valley floor is surrounded by high mountains that block out the sun entirely, during the winter months....

Drive-thru windows of fast food restaurants all over America are reporting a new sharp rise in a new trend - Customers 'paying it forward', meaning that they pay for the purchases made by the car right behind them. Why? Because they just want to perform a random act of kindness....

While you may never find money growing on trees, there is a chance that you could strike gold - literally! The best part is that the precious metal bearing trees are not in some far out planet, but right here on earth, in the Australian Outback....

Obtaining a driver's license is every teenager's dream. What is not however is the countless hours of sitting in a classroom or on a computer, learning all the rules necessary to become a safe driver. That is the reason, officials in the West African country of Sierra Leone have conjured up an innovative board game....

With its intricate layout, incredible architecture and advanced water and sewage systems, the 5000-year-old city of Mohenjo Daro in the province of Sindh in Pakistan, was once hailed as oldest and best preserved ancient cities ever found. Now, this amazing monument of our past, is in danger of disappearing completely, unless something is done soon....

Mention oysters and the two things that come to mind are slurping them down or wrenching them open for pearls. But now these mollusks may have a bigger role - that of protecting our waterfront cities from rising sea levels and giant storm surges like the one experienced by New York during Hurricane Sandy and helping clean our increasingly polluted waters....

A notorious Somali pirate that terrorized the seas for years is now finally behind bars in Belgium. While that is certainly newsworthy, what is even more so is that Mohamed Abdi Hassan literally handed himself to the lawmakers not because he was sorry, but because he believed they were filmmakers and he, the star of their next blockbuster!...

They say that when it rains, it pours. That certainly seemed to be case in Southern California last week, except that it was not water falling from the skies, but ginormous rare oarfishes that appeared from deep inside the oceans....

While scientists have built many artificial organs individually, they have never before been put together to create an entire human body. Rex or as he has recently been renamed Frank (after Frankenstein), the world's first fully functional bionic man has just changed that. Now on display at the National Air And Space Museum in Washington D.C., the human clone was assembled in three short months using state-of-the-art organs that were donated by 17 manufacturers - A good thing given that the total cost came to about $1 million USD!...

We have heard of the occasional fish, tadpole and even spider raining down from the skies, but diamonds? That is definitely a first! Unfortunately, this miracle is not happening anywhere on earth but over 830 million miles (1.2 billion km) away, on Saturn and Jupiter....

When the government partially shut down on October 1st, after lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement on what is usually a routine matter - Passing the Continuing Resolution (CR) to fund normal government programs - most political pundits predicted that it would last just a few days. They were obviously wrong....

With thousands of beautiful flamingos crowding around, at first glance Lake Natron, a salt lake in Northern Tanzania looks like your typical picturesque African landscape. But look closer and you will find something eerily unusual - Perfectly preserved dead animals strewn all along its shores. And while many have likened the lake to Medusa, the monster from Greek mythology who turned anyone that looked her in the eye to stone, most experts assert that the lake itself is not deadly....

Similar to the giant crop circles that sporadically appear in different parts of the world, strange grass circles that mysteriously emerge in South Africa's Namib Desert have dumbfounded both locals and scientists for many years. Measuring between 6 - 40 feet across, each 'fairy circle' is outlined by a ring of vegetation taller, than the surrounding grassland....

It has taken over a decade and faced numerous design hurdles, but the new $100 USD bill that Americans fondly call 'Benjamin' finally made its debut on October 8th, 2013. The largest U.S. denomination in circulation, it is not surprisingly, the most recognized form of U.S. Currency worldwide....

As we get ready to celebrate Columbus Day on October 14th, here is some food for thought. What if it was not Christopher Columbus, but Chinese Admiral Zheng He that discovered the new world almost seven decades before the Spanish explorer set foot on the island in the Bahamas that we now call San Salvador? That, is something that amateur British historian Gavin Menzies has been asserting for years and he now has new evidence to prove it....

Most people are grossed out by insects and believe them to be just a nuisance. However, a group of students from Montreal-based McGill University think of them as protein that can be used to feed millions of malnourished people worldwide, an idea so powerful that it won them the prestigious 2013 Hult Prize on September 23rd....

To say that 11-year old Michal Bodzianowski knows very little about beer would be an understatement. He has of course never tasted the drink and till his dad explained, had no clue what a microbrewery was. But that didn't deter the sixth-grader from suggesting that astronauts brew the drink in Space as his entry for the Spring 2013 Student Spaceflight Experiments Challenge organized by the National Science Earth And Space Education whose main goal is to inspire the next generation of America's scientists and engineers....

When luxury cruise liner Costa Concordia struck a rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the shore of Italy's Tuscan Archipelago and collapsed on its side on January 13th, 2012, salvage engineers knew that they had a nightmare on their hands because a rescue operation of a ship this size, had never been done before. To make matters worse, the liner lay right in the midst of the Pelagos Sanctuary, an environmentally protected area of the Mediterranean, which meant that even a small misstep could turn into a disaster....