Games and Competition

Memorial to a species, Brent Stirton, South Africa, Grand title winner 2017

Tragedy and Beauty of Nature on Display in This Year's Best Wildlife Photos

The 16 award-winning images range from whimsical birds to the tragic aftermath of a poaching raid

George Saunders poses with his book Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

Five Things to Know About 2017 Man Booker Prize Winner George Saunders

He becomes the second America to win for his book "Lincoln in the Bardo," an experimental ghost story that explores the grief of the 16th president

The 2015 winner of the "GIF It Up" competition.

Competition Wants You to Turn Cultural Heritage Into GIFs

The latest round of "GIF It Up" seeks the best GIFs made from public domain prints, photos, paintings and more

Consonno, a ghost town in northern Italy, is the location of the annual Nascondino World Championship.

The Hide and Seek World Championship Will Take Over an Italian Ghost Town

The annual event takes place in Consonno, an abandoned village once considered Italy's Las Vegas

The 1919 Chicago White Sox team photo.

The 1919 Black Sox Baseball Scandal Was Just One of Many

They say baseball "lost its innocence" after 1919, but betting and other improper behavior was rampant in early-20th-century baseball

Yes, the Amazon service is named after this robotic guy.

Debunking the Mechanical Turk Helped Set Edgar Allan Poe on the Path to Mystery Writing

Like many others, Poe was certain the machine couldn't be playing chess under its own power

Racing the Storm: The Story of the Mobile Bay Sailing Disaster

When hurricane-force winds suddenly struck the Bay, they swept more than 100 boaters into one of the worst sailing disasters in modern American history

The Flamingo's 'Champagne Tower' was one of the first big pieces of neon on the Strip, seen in films like 'Viva Las Vegas.' It was installed in 1953 and removed in 1967.

The Stylish Flamingo Hotel Shaped the Las Vegas Strip

The Flamingo, still operating today, is the oldest hotel on the Strip

The interior of the 1876 Glaciarium

The First Artificial Skating Rinks Looked Pretty But Smelled Terrible

Before the technology to reliably freeze water existed, the first rinks used pig fat and salts

Children of the ‘80s Never Fear: Video Games Did Not Ruin Your Life

Inside the ridiculous media panic that scared parents silly

Each Spring, the World's Punniest Humans Head to Texas

The 40th Annual O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships comes to Austin in May

Sandy Maliki

Dingo Wins Competition for World’s Most Interesting Genome

The desert dingo beat out an explosive beetle, a pit viper and pink pigeon to win a grant to have its genome sequenced

"Wing," "coin" and "toil" are all words you can play in any Scrabble game. "Biten," however, is not legal.

The Tournament Scrabble Dictionary Contains More Than A Hundred Slurs

One woman first raised the issue of the Scrabble dictionary containing offensive words in the 1990s

The interesting thing is that it doesn't sound like people minded much.

Once Upon a Time, Exploding Billiard Balls Were An Everyday Thing

It was a side effect of no longer making them from ivory

The 2016 Spelling Bee co-champions Nihar Janga, 11, of Austin, Texas, and Jairam Hathwar, 13, of Corning, New York.

The National Spelling Bee Adjusts Its Rules To Prevent Ties

Top spellers will be required to take a written test on the final evening of the competition

Researchers scanned the brains of memorizers as they practiced tried-and-true memory techniques to see how their brains changed in response to their training.

Neuroscientists Unlock the Secrets of Memory Champions

Boosting your ability to remember lists, from facts to faces, is a matter of retraining your brain

It was a pivotal moment in computing history when a computer beat a human at chess for the first time, but that doesn't mean chess is "solved."

Computers Are Great at Chess, But That Doesn't Mean the Game Is 'Solved'

On this day in 1996, the computer Deep Blue made history when it beat Garry Kasparov

Pinball players are no longer scofflaws in the eyes of Kokomo, Indiana law.

Pinball Is Finally Legal Again in This Indiana City

Kokomo, Indiana, has reversed a 61-year-old ban on the game

How Pokémon Go Can Save Lives in a Hurricane

Players could mobilize by donating blood, filling sandbags and evacuating threatened areas

Little People meant big fun for generations of imaginative kids.

These Childhood Delights Just Made It Into the National Toy Hall of Fame

<i>Dungeons & Dragons</i>, Little People and the humble swing are this year’s toy honorees

Page 10 of 15