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X-Rays Reveal Details of Portrait Once Hidden Under Vesuvius' Ash

Using X-ray fluorescence, researchers have mapped the pigments used on a crumbling painting in Herculaneum

The battered remnants of Fritz Koenig's "Sphere" will return to the World Trade Center site after years of exile.

Cool Finds

The World Trade Center's Only Surviving Art Heads Home

Battered, but not broken, Fritz Koenig's "Sphere" is being reinstalled near its original location at Ground Zero

Munch's painting 'The Scream' is one of Western art's most familiar images.

The Mysterious Motives Behind the Theft of ‘The Scream’

Two versions of ‘The Scream’ have been stolen and recovered in Norway

A statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was removed from the University of Texas at Austin campus, early Monday morning.

University of Texas at Austin Removes Three Confederate Statues

Gregory L. Fenves, the president of the university, says the monuments “have become symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism”

A bell from the doomed ship

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After 72 Years, Wreck of USS Indianapolis Found, Closing Chapter on Tragic Tale

After the ship was sunk by a Japanese torpedo, surviving crew members had to battle dehydration, exposure and deadly shark attacks

An early adding machine, c. 1890, invented by William Seward Burroughs, grandfather of the beat writer.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

How America’s First Adding Machine is Connected to ‘Naked Lunch’

William Seward Burroughs (no, not that one) was the first man to invent a commercially practical calculator

Today, the Mayo Clinic is a well-known research hospital.

One of the World’s Most Famous Hospitals Was Originally a Makeshift Tornado Relief Clinic

You could say the first Mayo Clinic was a dance hall that had been converted into a makeshift field hospital

New Research

How the Silk Road Created the Modern Apple

A genetic study shows how wild Kazakhstan apples dispersed by traders combined with other wild species to create today's popular fruit

Workers use a crane to lift the monument dedicated to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney from outside Maryland State House, in Annapolis, Maryland, early Friday morning.

Statue of Roger B. Taney Removed From Maryland State House

Taney, the fifth chief justice of the Supreme Court, wrote the majority opinion in the infamous Dred Scott case

Shakespeare wrote 'Macbeth,' which features three witches, during James I's reign, which also was the time of some of England's most famous witch trials.

England’s Witch Trials Were Lawful

It might seem like collective madness today, but the mechanisms for trying witches in England were enshrined in law

Happy National Soft Serve Day!

The Science of Soft Serve

It's just like regular ice cream–with a few big differences

Artists view of Greenwich Palace

Cool Finds

Part of Henry VIII's Birthplace Discovered

Workers uncovered two rooms of Greenwich Palace while building a visitors center at the Old Royal Naval College in London

WWII veteran Marvin Strombo, right, and Tatsuya Yasue, an 89-year-old farmer, left, hold a Japanese flag with autographed messages that belonged to Yasue's brother Sadao Yasue, who was killed in the Pacific during World War II.

U.S. Veteran Returns Flag to Family of Dead Japanese Soldier

Marvin Strombo took the flag from the body of Sadao Yasue during the Battle of Saipan, but promised that he would one day return it

Campers near Chaco Canyon, N.M., gather together and look to the east to watch the sun rise on August 17, 1987, as part of the harmonic convergence.

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Thirty Years Ago, People Tried to Save the World By Meditating

Believers in the Harmonic Convergence traveled to places like Chaco Canyon and Stonehenge to welcome aliens, the resurrected Maya and wait for world peace

Bishop's long-lasting lipstick was advertised as "kissable."

Chemist Hazel Bishop's Lipstick Wars

Bishop said her advantage in coming up with cosmetics was that, unlike male chemists, she actually used them

Pierre de Fermat left behind a truly tantalizing hint of a proof when he died—one that mathematicians struggled to complete for centuries.

The Romance of Fermat's Last Theorem

Fermat left a lot of theorems lying around. Mathematicians proved them all–except one

Carthaginian general Hannibal is legendary for bringing tens of thousands of soldiers, cavalrymen, and thousands of horses, mules and African elephants through the Alps during the Second Punic War.

New Research

Silver Composition in Coins Confirms the Story of the Rise of Rome

Lead isotopes in Roman coins reveal the defeat of Carthage financed Rome's expansion throughout the Mediterranean

Workers remove the Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson monument in Wyman Park early Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017.

Baltimore Quietly Removes Four Confederate Monuments

Mayor Catherine Pugh said the statues “needed to come down”

The replica bones and teeth in place

Once Plundered by Thieves, Ancient Cave Reopens with 3-D Replicas of Stolen Fossils

It took multiple attempts—and two broken printers—to get the recreations right

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on this day in 1769 in Corsica. As a young man at school, one instructor said that he "has always been distinguished for his application in mathematics."

Napoleon's Lifelong Interest in Science

Napoleon was a Frenchman of his time, which means he was interested in how science could do good–he just took it farther than most

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