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A view of the schooner-barge Michigan, which sank in Lake Superior on October 2, 1902, alongside the M.M. Drake

Cool Finds

Three 19th-Century Shipwrecks Discovered in Lake Superior

”[W]e have never located so many new wrecks in one season,” says the director of the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society

The prairie is 10,000 years old and was carved by the retreat of the last glaciers and is considered a gravel prairie. Only about 25 acres of high-quality gravel prairie are left in the state. Bell Bowl makes up five acres of what is left.

10,000-Year-Old Rare Prairie Land and Rusty Patched Bumblebee Threatened by Airport Construction in Illinois

Sightings of an endangered bee species have temporarily stopped construction, which is set to resume November 1

A passenger in a white truck photographs several capybaras in a yard in a gated community in Tigre.

Rodents of Unusual Size Take Over Gated Community in Argentina

Weighing up to 175 pounds and growing to four feet in length, capybaras are reclaiming habitat that once was theirs in South America

Those currently eligible for a booster shot include older and high-risk recipients of the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, and those who received the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Mixing and Matching Covid-19 Vaccines Could Impact Immunity

Because public health officials aren’t recommending one booster shot over another, individuals are left to make a choice based on personal factors

Claudette Colvin, pictured here in 1998, recently filed a request to have her arrest record expunged.

Claudette Colvin, Who Was Arrested for Refusing to Give Up Her Bus Seat in 1955, Is Fighting to Clear Her Record

The civil rights pioneer pushed back against segregation nine months before Rosa Parks’ landmark protest but has long been overlooked

The naturally mummified remains were remarkably well preserved, with some still sporting clothing and hair.

Cool Finds

New Research Reveals Surprising Origins of Millennia-Old Mummies Found in China

Once thought to be migrants from West Asia, the deceased were actually direct descendants of a local Ice Age population, DNA analysis suggests

Conservators discovered this painting, Untitled (Virginia Summer), beneath another work by Gorky, The Limit (1947). The artist's relatives had previously noticed sections of The Limit peeling up at the corners, revealing bright blue paint below.

Cool Finds

This Arshile Gorky Painting Spent 70 Years Hidden in Plain Sight

Experts discovered a sea-blue canvas by the Armenian American artist concealed beneath another one of his works on paper

Julie Green poses in front of a selection of The Last Supper plates in 2015. The artist died on October 12 at age 60.

Remembering Julie Green, Who Painted the Last Meals of Death Row Inmates

The artist, who died this month at age 60, sought to emphasize condemned prisoners’ humanity

Surveys yielded numerous burial sites along the planned train route.

Cool Finds

Thousands of Pre-Hispanic Structures Found Along Route of Controversial Railway in Mexico

Critics of the planned high-speed railroad point to its potential damage to archaeological sites and the environment

The Food and Drug Administration And Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are likely to authorize the vaccine for young kids within the next few days.

FDA Panel Recommends Pfizer Vaccine for Children 5 to 11

The lower-dose vaccine was deemed safe and highly effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19 infections in young children

Archaeologists have discovered the foundations of a major medieval tannery at a former monastery in northern England.

New Research

Large Medieval Tannery Discovered at Monastic Abbey in England

A sizable community of monks made leather for paper and printing at the major industrial site

Tompkins Harrison Matteson, Examination of a Witch, 1853

History of Now

Reckoning With—and Reclaiming—the Salem Witch Trials

A new exhibition unites 17th-century artifacts with contemporary artists’ responses to the mass hysteria event

Indri indri, a critically endangered species native to Madagascar, sings shrieking tunes to communicate with their social groups.

These Singing Lemurs Are the Only Other Mammal Species to Possess Rhythm

This discovery builds on the ‘evolutionary tree’ of how human musicality came to be

Poaching was amplified during Mozambique’s civil war between 1977 to 1992 to finance the war efforts. Elephant population numbers dropped from 2,500 individuals to around 200 in the early 2000s.  

Evotourism ®

Female Elephants Are Evolving Without Tusks in Mozambique

The genetic mutation causing tusklessness in females seems to be lethal in males

Kids given two low-dose versions of the Moderna vaccine a month apart showed antibody levels 1.5 times higher than those seen in young adults. 

Moderna Says Covid-19 Vaccine Is Safe and Effective for Kids 6 to 11

The trial of nearly 5,000 children showed a strong immune response from two low-dose shots

Each nest was found with eight to 30 eggs and in a relatively small area, suggesting that Mussaurus patagonicus raised its young in a communal breeding ground

Paleontologists Unearth the Oldest Evidence of Herd Behavior in Dinosaurs

Fossils found in an ancient nesting ground reveals that herd mentality is almost 200 million years old

Chinese railroad workers near the Secret Town Trestle in Placer County, California, around 1869

Cool Finds

Artifacts Used by Chinese Transcontinental Railroad Workers Found in Utah

Researchers discovered the remains of a mid-19th century house, a centuries-old Chinese coin and other traces of the short-lived town of Terrace

Other actions that curbed the spread of the virus include vaccine education programs, vaccination events, lockdowns, curfew times, and rigorous sanitary measures.

Puerto Rico Has the Highest Covid-19 Vaccination Rate Among the United States and Its Territories

Mass vaccination events and compliance with restrictions to prevent the spread of the virus helped control community transmission rates

JR's Greetings From Giza is one of ten enormous art installations featured in the "Forever Is Now" exhibition.

First-of-Its-Kind Art Installation Appears to Levitate the Tip of a Giza Pyramid

See stunning photos of new contemporary art installations at the historic Egyptian plateau, including an illusion by street artist JR

The cake may have been baked for a Palm Sunday celebration.

Cool Finds

WWII Bombing Raid Eerily Preserved This 79-Year-Old Charred Cake

Researchers discovered the blackened hazelnut-and-almond dessert in the ruins of a German house destroyed in March 1942

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