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An abandoned building near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant

Ukraine Seeks to Designate Chernobyl as a Unesco World Heritage Site

“People should leave with an awareness of the historic significance of the place,” says the country’s culture minister

A curatorial assistant found the wood fragments in a misfiled cigar box bearing the image of Egypt's old flag.

Cool Finds

Missing Great Pyramid Artifact Found in Cigar Box in Scotland

The wood fragments—among just three items ever taken from the Giza tomb—date to the fourth millennium B.C.

This rare Anglo Saxon cross spent more than 1,000 years buried in a Scottish field. Left: the cross pre-conservation, and right: the cross mid-cleaning

Cool Finds

Freed of 1,000 Years of Grime, Anglo-Saxon Cross Emerges in Stunning Detail

Conservation revealed the artifact, discovered with Scotland’s Galloway Hoard, as an example of intricate Viking-era metalwork

The survey did not conclude how the wild mink became infected with the virus, but it’s not unusual for captive minks to escape fur farms. (Infected mink not pictured.)

First Case of Covid-19 in a Wild Animal Found in a Utah Mink

The U.S. Department of Agriculture detected the infection while testing wild animals around a mink farm with a Covid-19 outbreak

Whales are especially vulnerable during the calving season since the mother-calf pairs float at the surface, raising their chances of encountering boats.

Biologists Celebrate the Births of Two Critically Endangered North Atlantic Right Whale Calves

With a population of around 366 whales, ‘every individual counts’ in coming back from the brink of extinction

An artist's illustration of a newly described species of ichthyosaur called Thalassodraco etchesi swimming in the Late Jurassic seas off the coast of England.

New Research

Amateur Fossil Hunter Discovers New ‘Sea Dragon’ Species on British Beach

Researchers think the new species may have been a deep diving specialist, due to its cavernous ribcage and enlarged eyes

Regina Valkenborgh's photograph features 2,953 arcs of light streaking across the sky, recording the sun’s rising and setting over eight years.

A Cider-Can ‘Camera’ Captured Eight Years in a Single Photograph

The ethereal snapshot, recorded by a drink can left in an observatory for almost a decade, may be the longest-exposure image ever taken

Arranged in symbolically significant ways with no clear hierarchy, the villages’ circular layouts may reflect their Indigenous inhabitants’ conceptions of the cosmos.

Cool Finds

These Amazonian Villages Were Laid Out Like Clock Faces

Scientists used LiDAR to investigate the ruins of 14th- to 18th-century Indigenous communities in Brazil

A team of scientists hand-raised eight ravens and tested their cognitive abilities every four months since they hatched.

Four-Month-Old Ravens Rival Adult Great Apes in a Battle of the Brains

In a series of cognitive tests, the corvids surprised scientists with their ability to interact with each other and with the world around them

The pterosaurs were flying reptiles that lived in the age of the dinosaurs. This is an artist's illustration of a member of the genus Pteranodon, which included some of the largest known flying reptiles. .

New Research

Study Reveals Humble Origins of Flying Pterosaurs

Tiny, flightless reptiles called lagerpetids may have given rise to the largest flying animal ever to have lived on Earth

German investigators found the 20th-century painting in a trash container at the Düsseldorf Airport.

Cool Finds

$340,000 Surrealist Painting Found in Recycling Bin at German Airport

Authorities managed to recover the Yves Tanguy work—left behind by a businessman bound for Tel Aviv—before it was destroyed

The vaccination effort underway is the biggest in United States history.

Distribution Begins for First Covid-19 Vaccine Authorized in the United States

Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine received emergency use authorization from the FDA last week

The bones likely belong to people sacrificed during the reign of Ahuízotl, eighth king of the Aztecs.

Cool Finds

The Aztecs Constructed This Tower Out of Hundreds of Human Skulls

Researchers in Mexico City recently discovered a new section of a macabre late 15th-century structure

Tasmanian devils nip at each other's faces while eating carcasses and during mating season, providing opportunities for infectious face cancer to spread.

New Research

Study Offers Hope for Tasmanian Devils, Once Thought Doomed by Infectious Cancer

In the late 1990s, one affected devil infected an average of 3.5 others, but now each only infects about one

The Lord of the Rings author lived at 20 Northmoor Road on the outskirts of Oxford, England, between 1930 and 1947.

Controversial Crowdfunding Campaign Hopes to Turn J.R.R. Tolkien’s House Into a Center for Creativity

The Tolkien Society has raised concerns about Project Northmoor, which is trying to raise $6 million by next March

Arctic ground squirrels are such adept hibernators that they can remain in their slumber for up to eight months by slowing their metabolic system down so greatly that they only need to breathe once per minute.

What Hibernating Squirrels Can Teach Astronauts About Preventing Muscle Loss

The Arctic ground squirrel recycles nutrients in its body, allowing it to slumber for up to eight months and wake up unscathed

This is the all-sky map created by the eROSITA X-ray telescope, represented in false color (red for energies 0.3-0.6 keV, green for 0.6-1.0 keV, blue for 1.0-2.3 keV). The original image was smoothed in order to generate the above picture.

New Research

An X-Ray Hourglass Is Emerging From the Middle of the Milky Way

Astronomers spotted the two gargantuan bubbles of charged particles ballooning out from the middle of our home galaxy

A family in southern England found the trove of 64 coins while gardening.

Cool Finds

Gardeners Unearth Coins Inscribed With Initials of Henry VIII’s First Three Wives

The find is one of more than 47,000 recorded by the U.K.’s Portable Antiquities Scheme in 2020

Concrete, a building block of our cities and towns, accounted for the most mass, followed by steel, gravel, brick and asphalt.

Human-Made Materials Now Weigh More Than All Life on Earth Combined

People produce 30 billion tons of material annually, making our built environment heavier than the planet’s biomass

The mosaic reflects a decline in craftsmanship but is still intricately made.

Cool Finds

Stunning Mosaic Found in England Shows Some Lived in Luxury During ‘Dark Ages’

The fifth-century artwork suggests that the British Isles experienced a gradual, not sudden, decline following the Romans’ departure

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