Emily Finch is a doctor of geology, but she has recently changed her Twitter handle to “Dr Eelmily Finch.” That’s because she has fallen head over heels for eels: “I’ve been greeting strangers with ‘DO YOU KNOW ABOUT EELS?’ Well, consider yourself a stranger in my path. Strap in.” An eel army marches on its stomach Here are some of the fascinating...

Drexel University's Academy of Natural Sciences has been housed at its current location since 1876. The museum is well known for its 37 dioramas located in the North American, African, and Asian halls on the first and second floors.  What you won't find on the museum's current map, or the average traveler's itinerary, are two dioramas on the third...

Each week, Atlas Obscura is providing a new short excerpt from our upcoming book, Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders (September 17, 2024). Most of the time, Chile’s Atacama Desert is gritty, cracked, and red. The desert gets less than 0.6 inch (1.5 cm) of rain per year, the equivalent of six or so hours of light drizzle....

Joyce Chen’s eyes water as she looks into the camera and reads aloud the letter of intent in her 1972 Chinese visa application. Twenty-three years earlier, she fled China’s Communist Revolution, only to watch a chasm grow between her birthplace and the United States, her adopted home. In the time since, she had used cooking as a tool to reach across...

The Stockton Diamond Railroad Crossing is a marvel of engineering and a humorous display of the state of rail in America. The Stockton Diamond is a crossroads of double-track freight and passenger rail owned and operated by Union Pacific and BNSF; the duopoly that controls all freight rail in the western United States. Union Pacific, owner of the north-south...

Wonder is everywhere. That’s why, every other week, Atlas Obscura drags you down some of the rabbit holes we encounter as we search for our unusual stories. We highlight surprising finds, great writing, and inspiring stories from some of our favorite publications. The New Zealand City with a Labyrinth of Underground Caves by Charlotte Lytton,...