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Australian Reptile Park spider expert Rob Porter milks a male Sydney funnel-web spider to create antivenom in 2001.

Australian Zoo Asks Residents to Capture the World’s Most Venomous Spider: the Deadly Sydney Funnel-Web

The Australian Reptile Park’s annual callout is crucial to creating life-saving antivenom

American civil rights leader Susan B. Anthony

On This Day in History

When Susan B. Anthony and 14 Other Women Were Arrested for Voting Illegally in a Presidential Election

After her detainment on this day in 1872, Anthony was found guilty by a federal court. She refused to pay her “unjust” $100 fine

An illustration of opening of the Suez Canal in 1869

On This Day in History

How the Groundbreaking Suez Canal Forever Transformed the World’s Shipping Routes

The massive global shortcut linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas took ten years to dig through the Isthmus of Suez and was built on the path of an ancient canal

Albert Hoffman, the chemist who first synthesized LSD, as photographed in 1976

On This Day in History

Discover the Origins of a Psychedelic Drug Synthesized by a Swiss Chemist Who Claimed It ‘Found and Called Me’

Five years after he created LSD in a lab on this day in 1938, Albert Hofmann accidentally underwent the first acid trip in human history, experiencing a kaleidoscope of colors and images in a sleepy Swiss city

William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson were among the well-known poets with works included in the new study.

ChatGPT or Shakespeare? Readers Couldn’t Tell the Difference—and Even Preferred A.I.-Generated Verse

A new study suggests people might like chatbot-produced poems for their simple and straightforward images, emotions and themes

The postcard is stamped April 11, 1912, just a few days before the Titanic sank.

Before the Titanic Sank, a Cheerful Passenger Wrote in a Postcard That He Was ‘Leaving for the Land of Stars and Stripes’

A handwritten note by Richard William Smith, a British businessman who perished in the disaster, is heading to the auction block, where it could sell for up to $12,600

One of the images that triggered rumors about astronaut Suni Williams' health. Here, she displays radiation measurement hardware.

NASA Addresses Rumors About Health of Starliner Astronaut on the International Space Station—Again

The space agency’s chief health and medical officer refutes claims that Suni Williams, who is on the unexpectedly extended Boeing Starliner mission, appears unhealthily thin

The researchers made experimental spindles and whorls based on 3D scans of the pebbles.

These Mysterious 12,000-Year-Old Pebbles May Be Early Evidence of Wheel-Like Tools, Archaeologists Say

Researchers in Israel suggest the roughly donut-shaped artifacts could be spindle whorls, representing one of the oldest examples of rotational technology

A crowd of tourists gathers on the main street at Pompeii.

Pompeii Introduces New Limits on Daily Visitors to Protect the Ancient City From Overtourism

A maximum of 20,000 people will be allowed to enter each day in an effort to protect the historic site in Italy, where misbehaving tourists are becoming a persistent problem

A 3D reconstruction of the fossil skull of a youth of an early Homo species from Dmanisi, Georgia. The green, orange and red colors represent the preserved teeth, while the blue represent missing ones and the purple teeth have not been recovered.

New Research

These Fossil Teeth From an 11-Year-Old Reveal Clues to Why Humans Developed an Unusually Long Childhood

Roughly 1.77-million-year-old teeth show that slow development in hominids may have had an earlier start than previously thought, according to a new study

King Arthur's Hall in Cornwall was named for the legendary leader of the Round Table.

New Research

Historians Thought This Was a Medieval Site Linked to King Arthur. It Turned Out to Be a Mysterious Monument Built 4,000 Years Earlier

Researchers have excavated King Arthur’s Hall, a rectangular enclosure in southwest England, and determined that it dates to at least 3000 B.C.E.

Officers display the weapons used in the November 15, 1959, killings of the Clutter family.

On This Day in History

Inside the Brutal Murders That Inspired a Foundational Work in the True Crime Genre

Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” documented the killings of a family of four in rural Kansas on this day in 1959

The Garden of Death, Hugo Simberg, 1896

See How Modern Artists Obsessed With Death and Darkness Looked to Medieval Gothic Artworks for Inspiration

A new exhibition in Helsinki spotlights the Gothic themes and influences that connected works by renowned late 19th- and early 20th-century artists

A diver swims alongside the world’s largest coral colony, located in the Solomon Islands.

See Staggering Photos of the World’s Largest Coral, Newly Discovered by Scientists in the Pacific Ocean

The enormous organism is bigger than a blue whale and made up of millions of genetically identical, tiny animals called polyps

Pocket gophers are a type of burrowing rodent known for their extensive tunnels.

New Research

How a Team of Gophers Restored Mount St. Helens After Its Catastrophic Eruption With Less Than a Day of Digging

After the volcanic eruption of 1980, scientists released the burrowing rodents for only a brief time, but their activities left a remarkably enduring impact, according to a new study

Japanese forces sank the USS Edsall on March 1, 1942, in the Indian Ocean.

Wreck of World War II Ship Known as the ‘Dancing Mouse’ Discovered at the Bottom of the Indian Ocean

The USS “Edsall,” a 314-foot-long destroyer, fought off Japanese forces for more than an hour before sinking beneath the surface on March 1, 1942

The Super Hunter's Moon of October 2024 rises over a headland near Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia.

See the Full Beaver Moon on Friday, the Last Dazzling Supermoon of 2024

November’s spectacle closes out a series of four big and bright full moons that have captivated sky watchers since late summer

The machine features a ceramic countertop and two parallel rollers—one that's covered with small nubs.

Cool Finds

Historians Say They’ve Solved the Mystery of a Curious 100-Year-Old Contraption Discovered in Storage

Staffers at the Dorchester County Historical Society in Maryland were baffled by the unusual machine, so they asked the public for help in determining its purpose

Walfang nach neuster Fangmethode (1885) by Jean Bungartz

On This Day in History

Herman Melville’s Great American Novel, ‘Moby-Dick,’ Only Got Mixed Reviews When It First Hit Bookstores

The now-beloved book, which centers on a sailor seeking revenge against a sperm whale, was initially met with lukewarm sales, only achieving iconic status after the author’s death

An artist's rendering of the X-37B conducting an aerobraking maneuver using the drag of Earth's atmosphere, with the bottom of the craft glowing red as it heats up.

The Secretive Spaceplane of the U.S. Space Force Conducts First-of-Its-Kind Maneuvers

Called aerobraking, the technique allows the highly classified craft to change orbit without using propellant—and some are wondering why the agency has let us in on this news

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