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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

A small hike in the water temperature triggers corals to dispel the algae, causing them to bleach and turn a ghostly shade of white.

Some Corals Can Survive Through Relentless Heat Waves, Surprising Scientists

The organisms can recover during a heat wave instead of afterwards, and scientists call it a ‘game changer’ for conservation of the species

Asian honey bees applying animal feces at the entrance of their hives to ward off attacks from hornets.

New Research

Asian Bees Plaster Hives With Feces to Defend Against Hornet Attacks

Researchers say the surprising behavior could constitute tool use, which would be a first for honey bees

About two dozen dogs were removed from the study because they were too excited and couldn't provide clear data.

New Research

Dogs Can’t Tell the Difference Between Similar-Sounding Words

Sit, sat or set? It’s all the same to Fido as long as you give him a treat

Notre-Dame's Grand Organ, as seen before the April 2019 fire

Inside the Monumental Effort to Restore Notre-Dame’s Grand Organ

Workers spent four months painstakingly dismantling the musical instrument, which is only set to sound again in 2024

Johns Hopkins, founder of the Baltimore university that bears his name, enslaved at least four unnamed men in 1850. Pictured behind Hopkins is the 1850 "slave schedule" with his name (#33, circled in blue) and the enslaved individuals' ages.

New Research

Long Heralded as an Abolitionist, Johns Hopkins Enslaved People, Records Show

The Baltimore university that bears his name announced new research that “shattered” perceptions of the Quaker entrepreneur

The world's highest-altitude peak is called Sagarmatha in Nepal and Chomolungma in Tibet.

Is Mount Everest Really Two Feet Taller?

The new height measurement comes from an updated survey and decades of slow tectonic movement, not a sudden growth spurt

An ice core extracted at El Malpais National Monument in New Mexico connects water collection to periods of droughts.

Cool Finds

Ancestral Puebloans Survived Droughts by Collecting Water From Icy Lava Tubes

In ancient New Mexico, cold air in cavernous spaces carved out by lava flows preserved blocks of ice

Researchers caught an 81-year-old midnight snapper (Macolor macularis) like the one pictured here off the coast of Western Australia. The fish is the oldest coral reef fish ever discovered.

New Research

Researchers Catch Oldest Tropical Reef Fish Known to Science

Researchers caught the 81-year-old midnight snapper off the coast of Western Australia

Ranavalona III succeeded her great-aunt, Ranavalona II, in 1883.

The Little-Known Story of Madagascar’s Last Queen, Ranavalona III

Artifacts linked to the royal are headed home following their purchase at auction by the African island’s government

Submissions will be included in an online exhibition, “Reclamation: Recipes, Remedies, and Ritual,” set to open in January 2021.

Your Cherished Family Recipes Could Be Featured in a Museum Exhibition

The National Museum of Women in the Arts is asking the public to share recipes that document unique family histories

Experts have identified the painting as the earliest known version of Jacob Jordaens' The Holy Family (1617–18).

Cool Finds

A 400-Year-Old Flemish Masterpiece Spent Decades Hiding in Plain Sight

Officials previously thought that the Jacob Jordaens painting, which hung in a Brussels town hall for 60 years, was a copy

Researchers recorded 38 instances of pandas covering themselves in horse manure between June 2016 and June 2017.

New Research

In Winter, Pandas Love to Roll in Horse Poop

To deal with crappy weather, the black-and-white bears may be slathering themselves in feces to stay warm

An aerial oblique photo of the volcanoes of the Islands of Four Mountains in Alaska's Aleutian Island chain. In the center is the summit of Mount Tana. Behind Tana are (left to right) Herbert, Cleveland and Carlisle Volcanoes.

New Research

A Massive Supervolcano May Lurk Beneath Alaska’s Aleutian Islands

Multiple lines of evidence led scientists to the idea that a group of six volcanoes in the islands are actually part of a 12-mile-wide caldera

Rosa Bonheur, Ploughing in the Nivernais, 1849

Rosa Bonheur’s Hyper-Realistic Animal Scenes Transfixed 19th-Century Europe

The Musée d’Orsay recently announced plans to dedicate a fall 2022 exhibition to the trailblazing French artist

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