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Stories from Sarah Kuta

As many as 23,000 tourists visited the Acropolis per day last summer.

You Can Soon Take a Private Tour of the Acropolis—For a Steep Price

Scheduled to begin April 1, the off-hours visits will cost €5,000 ($5,500) per group

The painting is attributed to Dutch artist Cornelis van Haarlem.

Nazi-Looted Painting Returned to Collector’s Heir

The 16th-century piece was one of more than 1,100 artworks taken from a Dutch-Jewish art dealer’s collection during World War II

The capsule has a gelatinous coating that dissolves in stomach acid.

Engineers Design a Vibrating Pill for Weight Loss That Could Create a Feeling of Fullness

The capsule is the size of a multivitamin, and in an experiment with pigs, it appeared to reduce the animals’ appetites

The burial mound is called Herlaugshaugen, and it's located in coastal Norway in a community called Leka.

1,300-Year-Old Ship Burial Unearthed in Norway

The custom of burying people in their ships was believed to help provide safe passage to the afterlife

What makes cheddar so good? A community of microorganisms working in harmony.

What Makes Cheddar Cheese Taste So Good?

After a year-long cheddar-making experiment, scientists have unraveled the microbial underpinnings of the cheese’s buttery flavor

The rare George Washington portrait could sell for as much as $2.5 million in January.

The Met Is Selling This Rare Portrait of George Washington

Artist Gilbert Stuart painted the work after the president sat for him in late 1795

Data from the Hubble Space Telescope produced this new image of the galaxy UGC 8091.

See the ‘Sparkling Snow Globe’ Galaxy Captured by the Hubble Space Telescope

The new, holiday-inspired image features UGC 8091, an “irregular” dwarf galaxy in the constellation Virgo

Rembrandt's The Night Watch (1642)

Lead Base Layer Discovered in Rembrandt’s ‘The Night Watch’

Researchers analyzed a tiny paint sample from the piece and found a lead-rich layer on the canvas

This A.I.-generated illustration shows what some of the undiscovered extinct birds might have looked like.

Humans May Have Driven Twice as Many Bird Species to Extinction as Previously Thought

Statistical modeling of undiscovered extinctions suggests 1,430 bird species have disappeared during modern human history

Safety fencing at Arlington National Cemetery rings the Confederate memorial.

Federal Judge Allows Removal of Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery

The Defense Department had mandated that the monument be dismantled by January 1, 2024

Chimpanzees and bonobos may have the longest social memory of any non-human animal.

Chimpanzees and Bonobos May Remember Faces for More Than 20 Years

The great apes, which are humans’ closest living relatives, appeared to recognize photos of their former acquaintances in a study, even decades later

Maritime archaeologists suspect the wreck is the George L. Newman.

Father and Daughter Discover 152-Year-Old Shipwreck While Fishing in Green Bay

Tim and Henley Wollak found what is likely the wreck of the “George L. Newman,” which sank during the Great Peshtigo Fire of 1871

Cats can fetch—but they prefer to be in control of the playtime.

Like Dogs, Some Cats Will Play Fetch—but Mostly on Their Own Terms

Many felines appear to pick up the playful behavior spontaneously, without any explicit training, a survey of cat owners finds

This year, lookups on Dictionary.com increased for A.I.-related words, including "generative A.I.,” “GPT” and “chatbot.”

‘Hallucinate’ Is Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year for 2023

In the context of artificial intelligence, the word means “to produce false information” and “present it as if true”

Early risers may be able to thank their Neanderthal ancestors.

Neanderthal DNA May Help Explain Why Some People Are Early Risers

A new study finds a link between Neanderthal DNA and modern human genes related to the internal body clock, or circadian rhythm

Italian opera singing is now among the hundreds of cultural practices officially recognized by UNESCO.

Italian Opera Singing Is Now Protected by the U.N.

UNESCO announced 55 new additions to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage

Cats are not picky and will eat nearly anything they can catch.

Cats Prey on More Than 2,000 Different Species

A new study sheds light on just how many creatures domestic cats will eat—including hundreds that are threatened or endangered

One side of the device was used to tell the date of Easter Sunday.

This Device Might Be England’s Oldest Dated Scientific Instrument

The 712-year-old artifact is a horary quadrant, a medieval tool used to tell time based on the position of the sun

The biocrust is made up of lichen, mosses and cyanobacteria.

Parts of China’s Great Wall Are Protected by a ‘Living Cover’ of Biocrusts

The layer of lichen, moss and cyanobacteria helps shield the historic structure from erosion, a new study finds

Electric eels can discharge up to 860 volts of electricity.

Eels Can Genetically Modify Nearby Fish With Their Electrical Pulses

In laboratory experiments, gene transfer occurred in 5 percent of zebrafish larvae that were near eels when they discharged electricity

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