· Discoveries Archive

Smaller than you think

Tardigrades, viruses and the invisible kingdoms living on you.

Microscopic dust mites survive entirely on the dead skin cells you shed every day.

Gram for gram, a single dragline thread is tougher than Kevlar and stronger than high-grade steel — and we still can't mass-produce it.

A grasshopper walks calmly to the edge of a pond and jumps in. It can't swim.

A satellite opened its door in orbit and exposed these animals to vacuum. Most came back alive.

A parasitic fungus hijacks an ant's body, kills it, and grows out of its head.

We put water bears in orbit and they shrugged.

You are renting your skin to thousands of tiny eight-legged tenants. They poop on it.