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Cool Finds

World’s Oldest Fish Hooks Discovered in Okinawa

The 23,000-year-old barbs are made from snail shell. The discovery shows that early people had the resources to survive on the isolated island

The mammoth skull being excavated on Santa Rosa Island

Cool Finds

Scientists Puzzle Over Unusual Mammoth Skull Unearthed in the Channel Islands

The well-preserved fossil doesn’t neatly fit in with other examples of the species

Oscar Wilde spent two years in what was then called Reading Gaol.

Cool Finds

A British Jail Is Paying Artistic Tribute to Oscar Wilde, its Most Famous Inmate

Patti Smith, Ai Weiwei and others envision what it’s like to be Inside

Archaeologists excavating the Antikythera Shipwreck skeletal remains.

New Research

Skeleton Pulled From the Antikythera Shipwreck Could Give Clues to Life Aboard the Vessel

Archaeologists hope to analyze DNA taken from a skeleton found among the wreckage

Wild horses in Death Valley, California.

Trending Today

A Brief History of America’s Complicated Relationship With Wild Horses

The iconic symbol of the Wild West has a tangled and controversial story

Cool Finds

Record-Breaking Lightning Strikes Force Redefinition of the Thunderbolt

A 199.5-mile-long streak captured the title for world’s longest and a 7.74-second blast won world’s brightest

Cool Finds

Amateur Archaeologist Discovers Significant Amount of Scotland’s Ancient Rock Art

Musician and avid walker George Currie has catalogued 670 pieces of prehistoric rock art in the Highlands

Long thought to be a genetic mutation, albino redwoods may actually serve as a forest filter.

New Research

Stalking Down Answers: Why Are Some Redwoods White?

The mysterious pale trees many not just be odd genetic mutations, a new study finds

These flowers may look beautiful, but in the imagination of Tamiko Thiel, they've turned hostile due to climate change.

Cool Finds

Augmented Reality Art Imagines What Could Be Seattle’s Weird, Bleak Future

Artist envisions mutant flowers and drone-like seaweed that may one day take over a post-climate change Seattle

The hate crime that killed Matthew Shepard was the impetus for a new choral work.

Trending Today

A New Choral Work Was Inspired by the Death of Matthew Shepard

“Considering Matthew Shepard” finds hope inside a story of hate

George Richmond made this chalk portrait of Brontë when she was 34 years old.

Cool Finds

Visit the Manuscript of ‘Jane Eyre’ in New York

The handwritten novel is in the United States for the first time—along with an exhibition of artifacts from Charlotte Brontë’s brief and brilliant life

For sale: a home with a bookish past.

Cool Finds

You Could Own F. Scott Fitzgerald’s House

Live in the Victorian rowhouse where a career was born

The Boston Light still shines brightly at night in Boston Harbor.

Cool Finds

The Oldest Lighthouse in the United States Just Celebrated 300 Years of Service

The Boston Light still welcomes sailors to Boston Harbor

America, Maurizio Cattelan, gold, 2016

You’ll Want to Sit on Guggenheim’s Latest Piece, an 18-Karat Golden Toilet

Maurizio Cattelan returns from retirement with this pretentious potty

A harvest moon peeking through the trees on September 8, 2014.

Trending Today

This Weekend’s Stargazing Triple Threat: Harvest Moon, Eclipse and Possible Supermoon

This will be the last harvest moon eclipse until 2024

A 3,000-year-old clay pot with cheese residue found burnt to the bottom

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Find Ancient Pot With Traces of 3,000-Year-Old Burnt Cheese

This ancient mishap gives researchers a peek into Bronze Age life

The Survivor Tree was returned to the WTC in 2015.

Cool Finds

Saplings From the 9/11 Survivor Tree Are Headed to Paris, San Bernardino and Orlando

The tree is a powerful symbol of resilience and life, even in the most tragic circumstances

A Fresnel lens from the Boon Island Lighthouse off of southern Maine.

Cool Finds

The U.S. Government Is Suing for a Set of Lighthouse Lenses

The lenses could be worth up to $600,000

The monument protects an array of endemic, threatened and endangered species, including the sperm whale.

Obama Declares the First Atlantic Ocean National Marine Monument

With the announcement of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, Obama solidifies his legacy as an ocean guardian

This image shows a scrap of the indigo-dyed fabric (right) and a diagram of the cloth (left), highlighting the blue stripes.

New Research

Earliest Evidence of Indigo Dye Found at Ancient Peruvian Burial Site

The dyed fabrics represent the earliest known use of indigo in the world, predating Egyptian samples by about 1,600 years

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