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Cool Finds

Fossil Trees Reveal the Oldest Known Forest in Asia

The grove of lycopsid trees is 365 million years old and covers 2.7 million square feet

Trending Today

There Is Going to Be a ‘Moby-Dick’ Musical

Broadway powerhouses Dave Malloy and Rachel Chavkin recently previewed the performance under the whale at the American Museum of Natural History

Trending Today

Cleopatra May Have Once Smelled Like This Recreated Perfume

A team sought to replicate ancient Egypt’s most famous perfumes based on residue found in old bottles

New Research

The Scientists Who Stared at Gulls

A new study suggests that watching the birds as they approach will slow them down or scare them off

A Police officer asks tourists to scoot.

Per Favore, Do Not Sit on the Spanish Steps

Plop down on the landmark and you might find yourself hit with a €250 fine

Would you drink it?

Why Scientists Are Making Vodka in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

It’s perfectly safe to drink, according to a new report

The result. On Twitter, Samus Blackley describes it as "much sweeter and more rich than the sourdough we are used to."

Cool Finds

This Bread Was Made Using 4,500-Year-Old Egyptian Yeast

After extracting the dormant yeast from cooking vessels, an amateur gastroegyptologist used ancient grains to recreate an Old Kingdom loaf

Trending Today

A Crashed Spacecraft Might Have Put Earth’s Most Indestructible Organisms on the Moon

The microscopic tardigrades were part of a lunar library sent aboard the Beresheet lander that crashed last April

Reconstruction of the giant parrot Heracles, with small New Zealand wrens for scale.

This Chonky Ancient Bird Is the World’s Largest Known Parrot

Discovered in New Zealand, the bird has been dubbed ‘Squawkzilla’

Beyoncé Knowles-Carter photographed on July 14, 2019 in London, England.

A Beyoncé Portrait Is Coming to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery

The image appeared in Vogue’s 2018 September issue and was shot by the photographer Tyler Mitchell

"The Gift of Literature" by Jules Arthur Arts is one of the three proposals for the sculpture honoring Maya Angelou at the San Francisco Main Library.

San Francisco Is Getting a Monument to Maya Angelou

The city’s arts commission is expected to choose one of three proposed designs this week

Neonics are responsible for 92 percent of the increase in U.S. agricultural toxicity

Toxic Pesticides Are Driving Insect ‘Apocalypse’ in the U.S., Study Warns

The country’s agricultural landscape is now 48 times more toxic to insects than it was 25 years ago

July was the hottest month in recorded history.

Trending Today

Last Month Was the Hottest July in Recorded History

The EU’s weather satellites show the global average was 0.072 higher than July 2016, the previous record holder

Toni Morrison, painted by Robert McCurdy, 2006, oil on canvas

Toni Morrison, ‘Beloved’ Author Who Cataloged the African-American Experience, Dies at 88

‘She changed the whole cartography of black writing,’ says Kinshasha Holman Conwill of the National Museum of African American History and Culture

Kiwi birds are native to New Zealand.

It Will Take New Zealand 50 Million Years to Recover Its Lost Bird Biodiversity

Half of the country’s unique avian taxa have gone extinct since humans came to the island

Saber-toothed cats likely ambushed plant-eating prey in forests, not open grassland

Fossils Reveal Why Coyotes Outlived Saber-Toothed Cats

Contrary to popular belief, carnivorous cats and canines probably didn’t hunt the same limited pool of prey

Marcel Proust in 1900.

Cool Finds

Nine Newly Discovered Proust Stories to Be Published

The works were slated to be part of the French author’s first collection of poems and stories, but were cut for unknown reasons

Dorothy Toy and her tap dance partner Paul Wing circa 1942.

Remembering Dorothy Toy, a Dazzling Asian-American Tap Dance Star

She and her dance partner Paul Wing appeared together as stars of stage and screen, but they were not immune to prejudicial attitudes

Some of the plastic trash pulled from the stomachs of flesh-footed shearwater chicks.

New Research

Eating Even One Piece of Plastic Has Health Consequences for Baby Seabirds

A study of fleshy-footed shearwater babies found plastic increased their cholesterol, impacted their kidneys and disrupted normal growth

Ngwevu intloko skull

After 30 Years, a South African Dinosaur Is Identified as a New Species

The fossil, held for decades at the University of Witwatersrand, was previously thought to belong to the most common dinosaur species in South Africa

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