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A San Quintin kangaroo rat at rest in the field.

Cool Finds

This Kangaroo Rat Was Just Spotted For the First Time in 30 years

A native to Baja California, the San Quintín kangaroo rat hopped back into researchers’ lives last summer

Each caterpillar of the oak processionary moth have about 62,000 hairs that contain a protein called thaumetopoein, which causes rashes, asthma attacks and vomiting.

Londoners Beware: These Toxic Caterpillars Cause Rashes and Asthma

The caterpillars were accidentally introduced to Britain in 2005

Isaac Bashevis Singer by Yousuf Karsh

Trending Today

Scholar Finds New Isaac Bashevis Singer Story

“The Boarder,” which is published for the first time in the New Yorker, was discovered while going through the prominent writer’s vast archives

This Mawson & Swan camera owned by Winslow Homer, ca. 1882, was gifted to Bowdoin College Museum of Art by Neal Paulsen.

Exhibition to Bring Winslow Homer’s Long-Lost Camera—and Photography—Into Focus

After four years of research, the new medium’s impact on Homer’s art will be explored this summer at Bowdoin College Museum of Art

Good old Number 16 in happier times

New Research

The World’s Oldest Known Spider Has Died at Age 43

The female trapdoor spider ruled over her burrow in the Australian outback until a parasitic wasp attacked

Clothes of genocide victims whose bodies were recently exhumed hang outside at the site of the mass grave in Gasabo district, near the capital Kigali, in Rwanda

Victims of Rwandan Genocide Identified in Newly Discovered Mass Graves

The discovery comes almost a quarter century after the genocide occurred

Future of Art

Comet “Snowstorm” Swirling in This Stunning GIF Is a Tricky Illusion

“Things are not quite as they seem,” explains astronomer Mark McCaughrean

Future of Art

Watch Cells Move Within Living Animals in This Breathtaking Footage

The new microscope technique incorporates cutting-edge technology to capture spectacular imagery of cellular activity

Cabral's image, now disqualified, was one of the winners of the 2017 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

Contest Judges Rule Wildlife Photography Winner Used Taxidermic Creature

Brazilian photographer Marcio Cabral has been disqualified and can not enter the competition in the future

Cool Finds

Fossil Tracks May Record Ancient Humans Hunting Giant Sloths

The tracks suggest a human—perhaps in search of food—closely followed the movements of the massive creature

Europe

A History Nerd Will Get to Spend the Summer Guiding Visitors Through 4,000 Years of History

Jarlshof in the Shetland Islands is looking for a guide to take visitors through its Stone, Bronze and Iron Age, Pictish, Viking and Scottish ruins

Located in Orange, Virginia, Montpelier was the plantation home of the Madison family. It's now a museum and historical site.

LiDAR Gives Researchers New Insight Into the Lives of Montpelier’s Enslaved Population

Around 300 enslaved people lived and worked on James Madison’s historic estate

Contracted crews remove the Fountain of the Pioneers complex from Bronson Park, Tuesday, April 24, 2018.

Kalamazoo Removes Sculpture Depicting Armed White Settler Towering Over a Native American

“Fountain of the Pioneers” has been controversial since it was erected in 1940

A new study suggests Shigir Idol, a carved wooden sculpture first discovered in the late 1890s, is more than 11,000 years old.

Wooden Statue Found in Late 1890s Likely Dates Back More Than 11,000 Years

New research posits it is one of the oldest-known examples of monumental art

Trending Today

Why Swaziland Is Now the Kingdom of eSwatini

The king has declared it will use its pre-colonial Swazi name from now on

Cool Finds

Coin Once Believed to Be Fake Is a Million Dollar Find

Authenticators found a New England collector’s Gold Rush-era $5 gold coin is the real McCoy

Scientists have accidentally created a "mutant enzyme" that can break down plastic.

This “Mutant Enzyme” Breaks Down Plastic

It’s definitely cool—but probably won’t solve our plastics problem

This visualization is based on the first three-dimensional numerical model of melting snowflakes in the atmosphere, developed by scientist Jussi Leinonen of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Watch This 3D Snowflake Model Melt Over and Over Again

It’s not only mesmerizing, it could help researchers predict the hazards of wet snow

Gaia's all-sky view of our Milky Way Galaxy and neighboring galaxies, based on measurements of nearly 1.7 billion stars.

New Research

New Star Map Could Change Everything We Know About the Milky Way

The map includes 1.7 billion stars and is already revealing new details about star evolution and the formation of our galaxy

Why Researchers Believe These 100,000-Year-Old Etchings Weren’t Symbolic

In a new study, the markings — which resemble hashtags —were not found to be distinctive based on time and geography

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