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Marina Abramović standing on the Great Wall of China during her collaborative piece with Ulay in 1988

Nearly 40 Years After She Walked the Great Wall of China, Marina Abramović Returns to the Country With a New Exhibition

“Transforming Energy,” the artist’s first museum show in China, focuses on “artworks and objects that actively engage the audience”

Around Halloween, hundreds of revelers dress up as witches and warlocks and hit the water.

Why Are Witches and Warlocks Going Stand-Up Paddleboarding to Celebrate Halloween?

Across the country, revelers are dressing in costumes and gliding across bodies of water on stand-up paddleboards to ring in the spooky season

A rendering of the upcoming RTX Living in the Space Age Hall at Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum, featuring the New Shepard rocket booster.

Historic New Shepard Rocket Booster and Crew Capsule Will Go on Display at the Air and Space Museum

The two artifacts donated by Blue Origin achieved record-breaking feats and will extend the museum’s story of trailblazing space travel into the present

A group of old men playing cards in a bar in Acciaroli, southern Italy, in 2016. The town has a disproportionately high number of centenarians.

Human Lifespan Might Be About to Hit a Ceiling, Experts Say

In the ’90s, many scientists disputed an epidemiologist’s warning that the fast-paced life extension of the 20th century would plateau. Now, a new study suggests he was right

Thousands of treasure hunters have tried to locate the owl statue.

Cool Finds

A Treasure Hunt for an Ornate Golden Owl Buried in France Has Ended After 31 Years

The quest drew thousands of curious participants hoping to solve a series of elaborate riddles—and win a bejeweled statue worth an estimated $165,000

Elephants' wrinkly trunks might serve a purpose and reveal whether the individual prefers to bend the handy appendage to the right or the left.

How an Elephant’s Wrinkles Reveal Whether It Is Right- or Left-Trunked

A new study sheds light on the muscular, dexterous appendage, suggesting trunk wrinkles are more important than many people realize

All the Good Times We Spent Together (2016) by French artist Alexandre Lavet is a painted recreation of two Jupiler beer cans.

Museum Workers Have Rescued an Artwork From the Trash After a Mechanic Mistook It for Garbage

A Dutch museum famous for displaying art in unconventional locations had placed a pair of painted beer cans in a glass elevator shaft

Hiroshima was left in ruins after American troops detonated a nuclear bomb on August 6, 1945.

Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Japanese Atomic Bomb Survivors Who Fight for Nuclear Disarmament

The grassroots organization, Nihon Hidankyo, was lauded for “demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again”

Two lynx shelter from the wind behind their parent, who looks into the camera.

See 15 Winning Images From the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Contest

Breathtaking shots shine a light on the wonders of wildlife and the threats that human activities pose to the natural world

Volunteers looked at the original artworks in the museum and posters in the gift shop.

Art Meets Science

Seeing Vermeer’s ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’ in Person Stimulates the Brain More Than Looking at Reprints, Study Suggests

Scientists used EEG headsets, MRI machines and eye trackers to study volunteers’ responses to five paintings housed at the Mauritshuis museum in the Netherlands

Bord de Mer (Seaside), Claude Monet, circa 1865

A Rare Monet Painting Has Been Returned to the Family of Its Rightful Owners—Eight Decades After It Was Stolen by the Nazis

The Gestapo seized the Impressionist painting from storage after its owners fled from their home in Vienna. Now, the piece has been returned to their granddaughters

In the 1980s, there were only 22 surviving California condors. Now, after careful conservation measures, there are over 300 in the wild and 200 in captivity. (The above bird is not Milagra.)

Meet Milagra, a Rare Condor Rescued as an Egg and Newly Released Back Into the Wild

Milagra, Spanish for “miracle,” was hatched and raised in captivity by foster condor parents after her mother died of avian flu in April 2023

An illustration of a pluripotent stem cell, which can be coaxed to develop into various kinds of tissue

World-First Stem Cell Treatment Reverses Diabetes for a Patient in China, Study Suggests

Scientists converted the patient’s own cells into blood sugar-regulating cell clusters before injecting them back into her abdomen—and one year later, she still doesn’t need insulin injections

Han Kang has been a celebrated author in South Korea for decades.

Han Kang Becomes the First South Korean Author to Win the Nobel Prize in Literature

Best known for “The Vegetarian,” the novelist and poet was praised for her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”

The northern lights, seen from Alaska on October 7, 2024

You Could See Dazzling Auroras Tonight as ‘Strong’ Solar Storm Hits. Here’s What to Know

Predicted to bring the northern lights as far south as parts of California and Alabama, a large coronal mass ejection from the sun collided with our planet Thursday morning

Visitors photograph the Trevi Fountain, which is lit up at night.

Rome’s Trevi Fountain Will Get a Much-Needed Cleaning—and a Controversial New Entry Fee

During the restorations, visitors will be able to see the famous site via a temporary walkway, which officials will use to study the flow of foot traffic

Self-Portrait With Loose Hair, Frida Kahlo, 1947

This Exhibition Is Betting That You Don’t Know Frida Kahlo as Well as You May Think

“Frida: Beyond the Myth” aims to paint an intimate portrait of the artist through dozens of works created by Kahlo and photographs taken by her loved ones

David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday for their work on protein structure.

Scientists’ Work on Protein Structure, Which Governs All Aspects of Life, Wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry

David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John M. Jumper revealed how amino acids shape protein structure, a finding that could aid in drug discovery

NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick captured this image of comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) from the International Space Station, when the comet was 99.4 million miles away on September 22, 2024.

How to See the Bright Comet Flaring Up in the Night Sky This Week

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS should be visible to the naked eye as it passes Earth on its way out of our solar system

The woman's remains were contained in two painted coffins, one stacked inside the other.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Discover Intricately Decorated Coffins Belonging to the Only Daughter of an Ancient Egyptian Governor

The 4,000-year-old burial chamber featured hieroglyphs referring to the woman, known as Idi, as the “lady of the house”

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