Emily Jones

It's almost hard to fathom that the most prolific killer on planet Earth is a microscopic speck far tinier than the smallest bacteria. Yet viruses that infect and destroy bacteria, known as bacteriophages or simply phages, are Earth's most abundant organism with an estimated 10³¹ in number globally.

We've all basked in the gentle warmth of sunlight, without giving much thought to the fact that this light left the Sun over eight minutes ago, traversing a whopping 93 million miles to reach us.

Christmas Eve 1914 descended towards midnight under bone-chilling skies over Belgium's deadlocked Western Front. For British machine gunner Bruce Bairnsfather hunkering in muddy trenches with the Royal Warwickshires, thoughts drifted homeward across the growling guns.

Paris's iconic Eiffel Tower harbors an intriguing secret - a private apartment built solely for the monument's architect Gustave Eiffel to entertain esteemed guests.

In the spring of 1956, as flowers awakened from their wintry slumber across the wooded valleys of England's Charnwood Forest, an inquisitive teenager named Tina Negus convinced her family to make an impromptu detour.

Today high heels bring impressions of female elegance and sexuality. Yet stilettos actually originated in 10th century Persia worn by male horseback warriors, not court ladies. Throughout history, uncomfortable heels denoted wealth and status across genders and cultures from chopines in Venice to lotus shoes in China.