Smart News

Rachel Carson in 1962.

Rachel Carson Wrote Silent Spring (Partly) Because of the Author of Stuart Little

The book was a turning point for the environmental movement

New Research

Diet Deficiency Can Lead to Cannibal Hamsters

A new study may explain why the rodents are declining in western Europe

Vera Lynn performing a lunchtime concert at a munitions factory in 1941.

WWII Songstress Croons Her Way to Age 100 With a New Album

Dame Vera Lynn "the Forces' Sweetheart" will make the history books with the release

So hot, it's cool.

Cool Finds

Watch a Lava "Firehose" Spew Out of a Hawaiian Cliff

Kilauea is putting on a spectacularly scorching show

Appert devised the canning process using that old standby, trial-and-error.

The Father of Canning Knew His Process Worked, But Not Why It Worked

Nicolas Appert was trying to win a hefty prize offered by the French army

The beautiful Mauritius island may be hiding a chunk of continent.

New Research

Researchers Think They've Found a Mini Continent in the Indian Ocean

The island of Mauritius sits on a sunken piece of earth's crust torn apart by plate tectonics

This photograph of Abigail Scott Dunway features the words "Yours for Liberty,"—the phrase she always used when she signed her name.

Cool Finds

This Hell-Raising Suffragist’s Name Will Soon Grace an Oregon Hotel

Abigail Scott Duniway staged a lifelong fight for women's rights

A man administers a security screening at the Clinton Engineer Works, part of the Manhattan Project.

Lie Detectors Don’t Work as Advertised and They Never Did

Barred from use in U.S. court, lie detectors are still used today in other parts of the legal system

The President, one of only three Inner Circle members who are allowed to handle Punxsutawney Phil, holds him aloft during ceremonies in 2013.

Meet the Inner Circle That Runs Groundhog Day

They've been holding the ceremony in Gobbler’s Knob every year since 1887

Portrait of Edmonia Lewis by Henry Rocher

Google Doodle Sculpts a Tribute to Pioneering Artist Edmonia Lewis

Celebrate the first day of Black History Month by getting to know the 19th-century sculptor

Frogs have a sticky secret: spit.

New Research

Special Spit Helps Frogs Get a Grip on Insects

Secretly sticky spit snatches snacks, study shows

Astronaut Twin Study Shows How Hard Space Is on the Body

The study’s first results suggest that space travel can cause changes on the molecular level

Just call it "the house on Pooh corner."

Cool Finds

The House Where ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ Was Written Is for Sale

The 9.5-acre estate was once home to Christopher Robin and A.A. Milne

Leila Denmark practiced medicine until age 103 and lived to 114.

One of America’s First Female Pediatricians Saved Lives for 74 Years

Dr. Leila Denmark lived to be 114, and practiced medicine for three quarters of a century

This image shows a region in Saturn's outer B ring. NASA's Cassini spacecraft viewed this area at a level of detail twice as high as it had ever been observed before. And from this view, it is clear that there are still finer details to uncover. Researchers have yet to determine what generated the rich structure seen in this view, but they hope detailed images like this will help them unravel the mystery.

Cool Finds

NASA Releases Spectacular New Snapshots of Saturn’s Rings

Millions of moonlets appear to be tucked inside the debris that famously circles the planet

A 1925 pastel portrait of Hughes that belongs to the Smithsonian.

How Langston Hughes’s Dreams Inspired MLK’s

Langston Hughes wrote about dreams at a time when racism meant that black people’s dreams were silenced

A guard tower at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where tens of thousands were murdered.

Trending Today

Poland Is Searching For the Last Living Auschwitz Guards

New database lays out details of the SS guards and commanders who carried out some of history's most terrible crimes

CERN Weasel 2

Trending Today

Museum Displays the Weasel that Brought Down Particle Physics

A stone marten that disrupted the Large Hadron Collider in November goes on display in Rotterdam in an exhibit about human-animal mishaps

An artist's recreation of what the ancient creature looked like.

Bag-Like, Big-Mouthed Sea Creature Could Be Earliest Human Ancestor

This minute wriggly sea blob could represent some of the earliest steps along the path of evolution

The limestone carving of an aurochs

New Research

Dig This: Researchers Found a 38,000-Year-Old Engraving in France

Excavated from a rock shelter, the image of an aurochs covered in dots was made by the Aurignacians, the earliest group of modern humans in Europe

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