Jesse Singer articles

Metal detectorists know that every signal could be something incredible. They also know it is usually a nail, a bottle cap or another piece of metal nobody has wanted for a very long time. This little object looked like it belonged in the second category. But appearances were about to be very, very misleading.

Jesus may be the most influential person who ever lived. Billions worship him, and entire civilizations have been reshaped around him. But did he really exist? After 2,000 years of study, you might assume the evidence makes it an open-and-shut case. You would be wrong.

Flight attendants are trained to remain calm and polite while hundreds of strangers slowly forget how to behave inside a metal tube. That does not mean they have not noticed what you just did. And according to the people who work these flights, the same irritating habits appear again and again.

Most people assume their body arrived with the same standard equipment as everyone else’s. Two arms, two legs and all the usual pieces hidden beneath the skin. But there’s a pretty good chance something is missing...and you’ve never noticed.

Pick up a coffee mug. Unlock your phone. Sign your name. Odds are, the same hand takes over every time without you giving it a thought. And for 90% of us, it is the right hand. What shocks most people is that our closest primate relatives do not have that same strong hand preference. But scientists finally think they know what happened to us.

Most people walking around with a metal detector are hoping to find an old coin, a lost ring or at least something more exciting than another bottle cap. One man searching near a small German village found something much bigger. Then, instead of telling anyone, he quietly took it home and kept it hidden for eight years. Why?

For Americans, crossing into Canada can feel like driving into a slightly colder version of home. The stores look familiar, the cars look familiar and everyone is still arguing about parking. But it turns out the two countries do quite a few everyday things very differently—and some of the differences are stranger than anyone would expect.

If you had the chance to live on Mars, would you actually volunteer? Believe it or not, the space agency has just announced it's looking for people willing to spend an entire year on a Mars mission. And yes, it's accepting applications.

Today, humans sit comfortably at the top of the food chain. Nearly two million years ago, we were nowhere close. Early humans were getting smarter—but something else still had a very good chance of getting to them first.