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Smart News

Babies May Understand Counting Before They Fully Understand Numbers

By tempting an adorable pool of subjects with toys, a new study found that infants associate counting with quantities

A double ambrotype portrait of Albro Lyons, Sr. and Mary Joseph Lyons

NYC Monument Will Honor African-American Family Displaced to Make Way for Central Park

But the project has drawn criticism, particularly because the monument will stand some 20 blocks north of Seneca Village’s historic location

The tower had undergone a $7.9 million renovation.

New York’s Last Fire Watchtower Has Been Restored

Built in the 1850s, the structure was once part of the city’s fire-fighting network

Cool Finds

These Newly Discovered Shrimp Call a Whale Shark’s Mouth Home

Found in a whale shark off Okinawa, hundred of amphipods were living it up in the giant fish’s gills

Sandro Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" finds its subject striking a contrapposto pose

New Research

Why Viewers Are Drawn to Renaissance Artists’ Go-To Pose

A new study finds that the contrapposto stance reduces the waist-to-hip ratio, an attribute popularly associated with attractiveness

Nash won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994

John Nash’s Nobel Prize Sells for $735,000

Best known as the subject of “A Beautiful Mind,” Nash made pioneering advances in the study of game theory

A steppe eagle with an SMS tracker attached.

Trending Today

Text Messages Sent by Roaming Eagles Bankrupt Scientific Study

A steppe eagle named Min spent months out of range before reappearing in Iran and sending hundreds of expensive SMS texts

The painting, expected to sell for upwards of $6 million, will be auctioned October 27

Cool Finds

Lost Renaissance Masterpiece Found Hanging Above Woman’s Hot Plate Sells for $26.8 Million

Experts say the panel painting was created by Florentine artist Cimabue around 1280

The Nazis seized Winter, an early 20th-century painting by American artist Gari Melchers, in 1933.

Trending Today

F.B.I. Recovers Nazi-Looted Painting From New York Museum

The Arkell Museum had no inkling of the early 20th-century canvas’ dark past

The sea urchins are causing havoc.

Voracious Purple Sea Urchins Are Ravaging Kelp Forests on the West Coast

The trouble started in 2013, when sea stars, an urchin predator, began to die off

If participants successfully complete the program, the district attorney’s office declines to prosecute their case, and the arrest record is sealed

Low-Level Offenders in NYC Can Now Take an Art Class Instead of Appearing in Court

“It’s about holding people accountable, but doing it in ways that promote human dignity,” Brooklyn’s district attorney said

Cool Finds

Canine Archaeologists Sniff Out 3,000-Year-Old Graves in Croatia

A new study shows how canines trained to find human remains could help archaeologists locate new sites

Talk about a rat race.

Scientists Taught Rats to Drive Tiny Cars to Earn Froot Loops

What’s more, driving seemed to relax the rodents

The original Monuments Men remove the Madonna of Bruges from the Altaussee Salt Mine where the Nazi regime stored looted art treasures.

Trending Today

The Smithsonian and the Army Join Forces to Revive the Monuments Men

A new force of cultural specialists will advise the military on protecting cultural treasures from bombing and looting

A rendering of Kusama's design.

Artist Yayoi Kusama Is Creating a Whimsical Balloon for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

The artist’s studio collaborated with ‘balloon specialists’ to create the inflatable artwork

Trending Today

Why Did Thousands of Rubber Bands Show Up on an Uninhabited Cornish Island?

Nesting gulls have likely been trying to feed the bands found in nearby flower fields to their chicks for decades

An artists interpretation of the Yeti Galaxy.

New Research

Behold This ‘Cosmic Yeti,’ a Monster Galaxy From the Beginning of Time

Astronomers recently spotted 12.5 billion-year-old light from the giant galaxy, which helps explains the evolution of the early universe

A male white bellbird screaming its mating call.

Listen to the Shattering Call of the World’s Loudest Known Bird

The song of the white bellbird can reach 125 decibels, which rivals ‘the amplitude of a pile driver,’ says the author of a new study

The discovery highlights the dynamic nature of a site most frequently associated with the gruesome deaths of England’s rich and powerful

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Discover Medieval Woman and Child’s Skeletons at the Tower of London

The remains shine a light on the ordinary people who lived and worked in one of England’s most notorious historic sites

The pearl is set to go on view at the Louvre Abu Dhabi

Cool Finds

See the World’s Oldest Pearl, Soon to Go on View for the First Time

The 8,000-year-old gemstone was found at the Neolithic Marawah archaeological site in 2017

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