Playback: The Tree At the End of the World

For centuries, the Northwest Passage, the long-sought sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through northern Canada, was a holy grail of Arctic exploration. Even now, sailing through it isn’t guaranteed. Mark Synnott, a National Geographic Explorer, writer, and adv ...  Show more

There’s a lost continent waiting to be explored, and it’s right below our feet. We’ll dig into the deep human relationship to the underground—and why we understand it from an instinctive point of view, but not so much from a physical one. (Hint: We’re afraid of the dark.) In an e ...  Show more

Two friends from Australia attempt the first unsupported crossing of the Antarctic Peninsula. The brutal conditions of the world’s southernmost continent have defeated many an intrepid explorer. But Peter Bland and Jay Watson are undeterred. Disaster strikes though, in the middle ...  Show more

For much of history, tree canopies were pretty much completely ignored by science. It was as if researchers said collectively, "It's just going to be empty up there, and we've got our hands full studying the trees down here! So why bother?!"

But then, around the mid-198 ...

<div>It’s safe to say you have heard of the Bermuda Triangle. That terrifying slice of sea that swallows ships whole and plucks planes out of the air. But did you know this isn’t the only place where strange phenomena occurs? There are other triangles to be feared. This week we v ...  Show more

When volcanoes erupt, they spray particles into the atmosphere that cool the planet for a bit. As we get closer and closer to truly catastrophic global warming, more and more scientists are wondering whether a similar approach, called solar geoengineering, could be necessary. If ...  Show more