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A disturbing new video lets you watch as a Mexican red-kneed tarantula (Brachypelma smithi) literally crawls out of its skin. The 40-second time-lapse from The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden captures the adult tarantula as it tosses and turns, spending seven long hours shedding its old exoskeleton. The Mexican red-kneed tarantula is a docile spider

About 10,000 years ago, humans evolved a tolerance to cow’s milk; over the past 150 years, we’ve added 10 centimetres to our average height; and over the past 65 years, we’ve added 20 years to the average lifespan, mostly thanks to advances in science. We’ve come so far in such an incredibly short period of

Okay, time to stop everything and nut out a brain teaser: if Earth is spinning to the east at 1,180 km/h (733 mph), and we’re in a plane flying west, shouldn’t we get to our destination quicker, seeing as it’s literally spinning towards us? The short answer is no, because our plane is also affected

We’ve all heard about the infamous number 666, which is rather cryptically referred to as the “number of the beast” in the New Testament, and has more recently become known as the number of the Antichrist. But what is it about this simple, symmetrical number that’s been giving everyone the heebie jeebies for the past 2,000

If you really want to teach someone something, starting with a misconception and working backwards is one of the best techniques. A new video from Veritasium does just that. In the episode, host Derek Muller debunks one of the most common misconceptions about science – namely, that science is simply a steady, gradual way of

Deep in western Russia, if you know where to look, you’ll find a small collection of ragged scrap metal and crumbled concrete. Which isn’t that exciting. But if you rifle through the rubble, you will find a large, metal disc bolted to the ground. This isn’t just any old disc – it’s the welded-shut cap of

We all know that Earth is old, but it’s hard to put into perspective just how old it is. After all, what does 4.5 billion years really mean? How do you even comprehend that amount of time with our short-lived human brains? Well, Business Insider has done a pretty incredible job of it in this

Mirror image is a tricky thing, but it’s pretty clear when you look at words in a reflection, that mirrors flip things horizontally rather than vertically. Or, at least it seems that that’s the case. For example, when you hold up a sign saying “Food” in the mirror”, it flips reads a backwards “dooF”, but

It might not feel like it, but the adult bladder can hold as much as half a litre (2 cups) of pee before you’ll feel the need to ‘go’. Your body knows how much is in there because your bladder wall is filled with tiny receptors that send a message to your brain when the

Around 13.7 billion years ago, our universe sprang into existence, but what was around before the Big Bang? In a new episode of Star Talk, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking sat down with host Neil deGrasse Tyson to talk about what exactly pre-dated the beginning of our universe. Hawking’s answer put simply? Nothing. But just because an

First up, let’s just be honest – 95 percent of men and 72 percent of women reading this are just here to feel good about what you’re already doing behind closed doors (hopefully). But if the rest of you have been holding out your entire lives, just waiting for science to give you a reason

With 7.5 billion people currently occupying our planet, it’s almost crazy to think how much visibility is afforded to the culture and lifestyle of just 323 million Americans. But what would the world be like if everyone lived like that? Well, we totally have data to find out. From having loads more sex to spending

Ever since Elon Musk shared his blueprints for the hyperloop – a revolutionary transport system that has the potential to shuttle humans at speeds of more than 1,200 km/h (746 mph) – the engineering community has been in overdrive, with hyperloop prototypes popping up all over the place. And now Musk has put up footage

Correlation and causation can be tricky to grasp – it’s not always clear how they fit together. Just because two things are linked doesn’t mean that one causes the other… except when sometimes it does. The basics of this rather complicated relationship are put very well in the video below, from MinutePhysics. It uses the