Articles by Gemma Tarlach

The beloved photomicrography competition celebrates its 50th year with bubbly cannabis plants, vivid cellular architecture, and...Grimace? Is that you?

These ancient terrors, from Australia’s bunyip to Brazil’s capelobo, still haunt—and hunt—us.

The Cerutti Mastodon, found near San Diego, shows signs of being butchered 130,000 years ago—but by who? Or what?

Celebrate the season of adventure and savor all summer has to offer.

Revisit the spirit of long days for exploring and nights by the campfire, toasting marshmallows and telling tales.

The massive supervolcano eruption 74,000 years ago has been blamed for nearly killing off our species. The emerging truth is much more interesting.

A poignant, 2,000-year-old burial in northern Italy could be the latest evidence of an ancient friendship.

From wild page-turners of the eclipse-obsessed to a gentle children’s book for all ages.

For decades, East Africa was considered the birthplace of our species. Fossils from Morocco suggest otherwise.

This Lunar New Year welcomes the Wood Dragon, but these mythic animals never go out of style.

Skilled hunters adapted to the changing landscape and left tantalizing clues to who they were.

Spoiler alert: They’re giant worms.

From unexpected treasure in Ukraine to a unique relic of the American Revolution, Captain Santa’s lost ship to digital dugouts.

A giving guide from the Atlas Obscura team.

See the world “any which way” you can, says a seasoned traveler in her 70s.

Meet the Wisconsin woman wheeling around the world.

2.9-billion-year-old evidence could be proof of a lost ice age—the first “Snowball Earth.”

And we’re not talking about vampire books.

At Orlando Wetlands Park, water goes for a ride—through a natural filtration process—and attracts birds, gators, and more.

The ancient “Celtic” start of summer is rooted in animal husbandry—and it’s not on May 1.

Satellite imagery recently captured a dramatic view of shrinking glaciers and snow cover on the remote island.

The famous West African artworks, long at the center of repatriation debates, were made from materials sourced in Rhineland.

A marine reptile fossil from Svalbard challenges ideas about evolution and Earth’s greatest mass extinction.

These common formations create abstract designs and reveal important patterns of environmental change, big and small.