When forged over burning human bones, swords become filled with "spirit," says the Taiwanese swordmaker behind the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sword and other masterpieces. Video.

Rock rabbit dung heaps in Africa—some dating back tens of thousands of years—are time capsules of climate and vegetation information. Video.

Global warming is putting the pika, a hamster-like mammal, in peril. High in the Colorado mountains, a National Geographic researcher is trying to find out why its numbers are falling. Video.

Former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry, star of the new documentary The Cove, again confronts the Japanese town where dolphins are trapped and killed by hand in "drive hunts." Video.

Low water levels at a southern Mexico reservoir have revealed the remains of a 16th-century convent submerged when the lake was created 40 years ago. Video.

See undersea worlds that stand to be lost—and that six Southeast Asian governments are trying to save with their new Coral Triangle initiative to protect coastal reefs. Video.

In fall 1969, computers sending data between two California universities set the stage for the Internet, which became a household word in the 1990s.Video.

As monsoons and cyclones worsen due to climate change in the South Asian country, many coastal peoples are migrating to drier cities.

As the Dead Sea—really a giant freshwater lake—dramatically shrinks, Palestinian, Israeli, and Jordanian environmentalists have begun to devise ways to slow the decline.

In underground passageways that snake underneath the French capital, nearly six million people who died of disease in the Middle Ages share a final resting place.

Two Asian elephants in Thailand have been fitted with new prosthetic limbs after each lost a leg to landmine explosions.

Five bodies found in Bolivia may be guerrilla soldiers killed four decades ago for their involvement with revolutionary leader Che Guevara, anthropologists claim. Video.

A new study finds that people naturally walk in circles when their sense of direction is lost. Researchers had people walk in the desert and through a forest. Video.

Putting the "extreme" in extreme makeover, some Russian surgeons are courting controversy by breaking legs, among other procedures, to make the limbs longer for cosmetic purposes. Video.

A WWF spokesperson says that, unless development around giant panda habitat in China is controlled, the panda could become extinct within two or three generations. Video.