Smart News: Latest Discoveries & News

Henri Matisse's "Woman Sitting in an Armchair," is one of the paintings stolen by Nazis that will be returned to its rightful owner.

A task force took two years and nearly $2 million to investigate more than 1,200 pieces found in a Munich apartment

January 18, 2016

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches on Sunday, January 17. Though the launch went as planned, the craft's landing did not.

Jason-3 made it to orbit—but the company’s Falcon 9 rocket didn’t make it back to Earth in one piece

January 18, 2016

A girl in Vietnam puts flowers on her father’s grave in 1972

Cool Finds

Vietnam Turns to DNA to Identify the Remains of Those Lost in the War

Technological advances in DNA analysis will make this massive effort possible

January 18, 2016

Half of NASA's astronaut class of 2013 are women.

Cool Finds

Half of NASA’s Newest Astronaut Class Are Women

38 years after NASA hired its first female astronauts, four women are training to go to Mars

January 18, 2016

A red squirrel from the Rocky Mountains, contemplating its next attack on the power grid, probably.

Cool Finds

Move Over Hackers, Squirrels Are the Power Grid’s Greatest Foe

Cyberattacks may loom large in peoples’ minds, but these fluffy rodents are the ones actually taking down the grid

January 18, 2016

The Museum of Pinball in Banning, California, boasts a treasure trove of vintage and modern pinball machines and arcade games.

Cool Finds

Take a Turn at the Flippers This Weekend at the World’s Largest Pinball Museum

So you didn’t win the lottery: why not try your hand at a game of pinball?

January 15, 2016

Colored images show the bright supernova as seen by two different telescopes (the Dark Energy Camera on the left and the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network 1-meter telescope on the right).

New Research

The Brightest Supernova Ever Observed Tests the Limits of Physics

This explosion blazes about 570 billion times brighter than our Sun, according to researchers

January 15, 2016

An artist's rendition of Juno in orbit around Jupiter. The craft is powered entirely by the sun's rays.

Armed with over 18,000 solar cells, the Jupiter orbiter is taking solar-fueled space exploration to new lengths

January 15, 2016

A work by Pavel Ilie at the Romania Postmodernism Museum's "Before & After" exhibition.

Cool Finds

This Postmodern Art Captures a Tiny Moment of Hope During Romania’s Communist Years

Learn about Romania’s “unfrozen years” at Bucharest’s Postmodernism Museum

January 15, 2016

Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena of Chile has received architecture's most prestigious award, the Pritzker Prize.

Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena is the 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate

January 15, 2016

A climber stands in front of Mount Everest at Kala Patthar in Solukhumbu District of Nepal

Cool Finds

Virtually Climb Mount Everest From Your Living Room

A new virtual reality experience allows users delve into the world of Everest and scale the beast firsthand

January 15, 2016

Alex is the first January Atlantic hurricane to form in almost 80 years

January 14, 2016

Google helped develop new miniature cameras to capture the Miniatur Wunderland.

Cool Finds

Get a Big View of the World’s Largest Miniature Train Set

All aboard the Cute Train to Tinytown

January 14, 2016

Cool Finds

Star Light, Star Bright, Here’s Why the Heavens Look Brighter Tonight

It’s not just because the air is clearer

January 14, 2016

For the first time since 1974, no climbers reached the peak of Mt. Everest.

For the first time in over four decades, red tape and poor conditions prevented any climbers from conquering the mountain

January 14, 2016

New Research

Was the “Wow!” Signal From Aliens or a Comet Flyby?

The 1977 blast from space is often cited as our best evidence of alien contact, but a news study suggests it may have just been comets

January 14, 2016

Since this art museum in Brazil was completed in 1996, it has put the relatively unknown city of Niterói on the map.

Cool Finds

These UFO-Like Buildings Are a Space-Age Tourist’s Dream

The future is now—follow this tour of UFO architecture found all around the world

January 14, 2016

Matt de la Peña became the first Latino author to win the Newbery Medal for his book, "Last Stop on Market Street."

Meet the 2016 Caldecott and Newbery Award winners, among others

January 13, 2016

Cool Finds

Check Out a Medical Pop-Up Book From the 17th Century

Early movable books were geared towards informing adults not entertaining children

January 13, 2016

New Research

Archaeologists Find World’s Oldest Tea in the Tomb of a Han Dynasty Emperor

No word on how it tastes, though it probably made a good cup 2,150 years ago

January 13, 2016